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MEMORIALS OF COLEORTON

MEMORIALS of COLEORTON

BEING LETTERS FROM COLERIDGE
WORDSWORTH AND HIS SISTER
SOUTHEY AND SIR WALTER SCOTT

to Sir GEORGE and Lady BEAUMONT

OF COLEORTON, LEICESTERSHIRE

1803 to 1834

Edited, with Introduction and Notes,
BY WILLIAM KNIGHT

UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS

VOL. I.

EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS

MDCCCLXXXVII

Kit

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty,

at the Edinburgh University Press.

LADY BEAUMONT

THESE LETTERS WRITTEN BY

THE GROUP OF POETS

THAT USED TO GATHER AT
COLEORTON, LEICESTERSHIRE
ARE

Detncateti

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

PAGE

Preface, ........ vii

Coleridge to Sir George and Lady Beaumont, . . i

Do. to do. do. 6

Do. to do. do. 12

Ode to Mont Blanc, by Coleridge, .... 26

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, ... 30

Coleridge to do. . . 38

Do. to do. ... 43

Do. to Lady Beaumont, .... 52

Do. to Sir George Beaumont, . . . 55

Do. to do. ... 58

Wordsworth to do. ... 63

Coleridge to Sir George and Lady Beaumont, . 69

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, ... 72

Do. to do. 75

Do. to do. ... 77

Do. to do. ... 83

Do. to do. ... 88

Do. to do. ... 93

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Mr. Luff of Patterdale to his Wife, ... 97
Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, ... 99
Do. to do. . . . 104

Do. to do. . . .119

Do. to do. ... 123

Do. to Lady Beaumont, . . . .128
Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont, . . 130
Do. to do. . . . 131

Do. to do. ... 135

Do. to do. ... 139

Do. to do. ... 143

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, . . . 148
P. S. by Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont, 1 52
Dorothy Wordsworth to do. 155

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, . . .157
Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont, . . 162
Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, . . .167
Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont, . . 174
Do. to do. ... 182

Do. to do. ... 187

Wordsworth to do. . . . 191

Dorothy Wordsworth to do. . . . 210

Coleridge's Poem to Wordsworth, . . . .213
Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont, . . 219
Wordsworth to do. ... 223

PREFACE.

A short Preface will suffice as an introduction
to these volumes.

While collecting materials for the Life of
Wordsworth I had to pay occasional visits to
Coleorton, in Leicestershire ; and the late Sir
George Beaumont, his son the present Baronet,
and Lady Beaumont, kindly allowed me to
examine (and to copy) all the letters they
possessed^ written by Wordsworth and his sister
to their predecessors, — the Sir George and Lady
Beaumont who lived at the beginning of this
century. At the same time I found that there
were letters from many other distinguished
men in the library at the Hall ; and, amongst
them, some from Coleridge, from Southey, and
from Sir Walter Scott. These men were
associated in various ways with Wordsworth,

viii

PREFACE.

and — as their respective letters cast light on
each other, and on their common friends,, the
Beaumonts — I suggested their publication in a
Memorial Volume relating to Coleorton. The
representatives of the writers of the letters,
as well as the heirs of the recipients, kindly
gave their consent to their publication in this
form.

The pedigree of the Beaumonts of Coleorton
may be traced to the times of William of Nor-
mandy. Robert de Beaumont, one of the
' Companions of the Conqueror/ came over to
England in 1066.1 Francis Beaumont, the
dramatist — Fletchers friend and fellow-worker
— and Sir John Beaumont — Francis* elder
brother, and author of Bosworth Field — were
of the same family.

With Sir George, the seventh Baronet, the
present mansion of Coleorton is specially identi-

1 ' Rogier li Veil, eil de Belmont,
Assalt Engleis al primier front.'

Roman de Rouf L 13,462.
(Compare The Conqueror and his Companions, by P. R.
Planche, vol. i. pp. 203-216.)

PREFACE.

fied. He rebuilt it, and by his friendship with
the men of letters and artists of his time, he
made the Hall a centre of associations which
posterity will not willingly let die.

It lies about four miles south-east of Ashby-
de-la-Zouche, in Leicestershire. The e orton ' is
a corruption of over-town, or upper town, — the
higher of two small townships, the other being
nether-town. As a stratum of coal came to the
surface, and was wrought, at the former of these
villages, it was called Coal Overton, or Coalorton,
hence Coleorton. The mines are very old. In
the reign of Henry vin., says an old chronicler,
the fire c did burn for many years together, and
could not be quenched until that sulphurous and
brimstony matter (whereupon it wrought) was
utterly exhausted and consumed/ In the ac-
count of Leicestershire given in The Worthies of
England, by Thomas Fuller, published in 1662,
the following occurs : 1 ' Cole are digged up

1 See the edition of 1811, vol. i. p. 560, and compare
Burton's Description of Leicestershire (1622), and Nichols'
History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester.

PREFACE.

plentifully at Coleorton, in the hundred of West
Goscott, — I say Coleorton, for there is another
village called Cold-orton in this shire ; an addi-
tion which no less truly than sadly would be
prefixed to most towns in this country, if not
warmed in winter with this underground fewell,
that above ground is so much decayed/ It is
difficult to say whether Fuller meant by this that
the coal-mines were burning below ground, and
that these 'nether fires' heated the surface of
the country, or that since wood had become
scarce, it was well that they had access to this
c underground fewell/ In the note which Nichols
added to this paragraph, in the edition of 1811,
he says : e The coal-mines in this neighbour-
hood continue to be very extensively and very
profitably worked. At Coleorton, Sir George
Beaumont, Bart., has lately built a very elegant
house, from a plan of my worthy friend, George
Dance, Esq/

This Sir George, the artist, was the son of
the sixth Baronet, and of Rachel, daughter of
Michael Howland of Stonehall, Dunmow, Essex.

PREFACE.

He was born on the 6th November 1753, and
succeeded to the family title in 1762, at the
age of nine. He was educated first at Eton,
and afterwards at New College, Oxford. In his
twenty-fifth year he married Margaret Willes,
daughter of John Willes, Esq. of Astrop, and
granddaughter of Lord Chief-Justice Willes. In
1782 he travelled in Italy with his wife, and
shortly after his return entered Parliament,
representing the borough of Beer-Alston in the
House of Commons for six years (1790 to 1796).
In 1800 he planned, with Mr. Dance, the new
family mansion. It was not completed, how-
ever, till 1807.

The relation in which Sir George Beaumont
stood to the poets and artists of his day was
a remarkable one, not without its parallel in
literary history ; but the Maecenas of Coleorton —
himself an artist and an art-collector — had the
happiness of attaching many friends to himself
by disinterested ties, and of thereby multiplying
his own pleasures, and adding to his culture.
He always thought that he received more than

xii

PREFACE.

he gave, in the interchanges of friendship. He
certainly had the gift of calling out whatever
was best in his friends.

He had visited the district of the English
Lakes long before he became acquainted with its
poets. Southey tells us that Sir George spent
part of the summer in which he was married
at Keswick. In 1803 he lodged for a time
at Greta Hall, after Coleridge had taken up
his abode in it ; and he knew Coleridge before
he met with Wordsworth. He was one of the
first to appreciate the genius of these two men ;
and knowing that they had lived near each other
in Somersetshire, where they wrote the Lyrical
Ballads in concert, and were desirous to resume
the easy and familiar intercourse of former days,
he purchased a small property at Applethwaite,
about three miles to the west of Greta Hall, on
the southern flank of Skiddaw, and presented it
to Wordsworth, whom as yet he had not seen.
Sir George wrote thus to Wordsworth on the
24th October 1803 :—

< I had a most ardent desire to bring you and

PREFACE.

xiii

Coleridge together. I thought with pleasure on
the increase of enjoyment you would receive
from the beauties of Nature, by being able to
communicate more frequently your sensations to
each other ; and that this would be a means of
contributing to the pleasure and improvement of
the world, by stimulating you both to poetical
exertions.'

This wish was not to be realised. Several
concurrent causes led Coleridge to leave Cum-
berland, and Wordsworth lived on at Dove
Cottage, Grasmere.

Wordsworth's Sonnet suggested by the gift
may be quoted, with the explanatory note which
he dictated to Miss Fenwick regarding it : —

At Applethwaite, near Keswick.
1804.

Beaumont ! it was thy wish that I should rear

A seemly Cottage in this sunny Dell,

On favoured ground, thy gift, where I might dwell

In neighbourhood with One to me most dear,

That undivided we from year to year

Might work in our high Calling — a bright hope

To which our fancies, mingling, gave free scope

Till checked by some necessities severe.

xiv

PREFACE.

And should these slacken, honoured Beaumont ! still

Even then we may perhaps in vain implore

Leave of our fate thy wishes to fulfil.

Whether this boon be granted us or not,

Old Skiddaw will look down upon the Spot

With pride, the Muses love it evermore.

The Fenwick note is as follows : —

( This was presented to me by Sir George
Beaumont, with the view to the erection of a
house upon it, for the sake of being near to
Coleridge, then living and likely to remain at
Greta Hall, near Keswick. The " severe neces-
sities" that prevented this arose from his
domestic situation. This little property, with
a considerable addition that still leaves it very
small, lies beautifully upon the banks of a rill
that gurgles down the side of Skiddaw ; and
the orchard and other parts of the grounds
command a magnificent prospect of Derwent
Water, the mountains of Borrowdale, and New-
lands/

References to the purchase of this property
will be found in the letters which follow (see
especially Wordsworth's letter to Sir George
Beaumont of October 14, 1803). In that letter
he asks to be allowed to remain a sort of

PREFACE.

' steward of the land/ with liberty to lay out
the rent in planting, or any other improvement ;
and should he be ultimately unable to c pitch
his tent' upon it, he desired to restore it to
Sir George, that he might present it to some one,
who would be able to use it as originally pro-
posed. It must however have been formally
conveyed to Wordsworth in 1803, or 1804, as
his daughter Dora pencilled on the ms. of
the Fenwick note that her father had made it
over to her when she was a c frail, feeble month-
ling/

At intervals — from 1803 to 1806 — the Beau-
mont s visited Grasmere, and Wordsworth even
hoped that they would be his permanent neigh-
bours, during the summer or autumn months.
Sir George was specially struck with the beauty of
Loughrigg Tarn, so often likened to Lake Nemi
in Italy, the Speculum Diance. He purchased the
property, intending to build a summer cottage
upon it. In his Epistle to Sir George Beaumont
from the South- West Coast of Cumberland, written
in 1811, Wordsworth refers to this once contem-

xvi

PREFACE.

plated cottage, and in imagination he sees it
built :—

A glimpse I caught of that abode, by thee
Designed to rise in humble privacy,
A lowly dwelling, here to be outspread,
Like a small hamlet, with its bashful head
Half hid in native trees. Alas ! 'tis not,
Nor ever was ; I sighed, and left the spot,
And thought in silence, with regret too keen,
Of unexperienced joys that might have been ;
Of neighbourhood, and intermingling arts,
And golden summer days uniting cheerful hearts.

The house was never built ; the tarn was resold,
and the money obtained from it, given by Beau-
mont to Wordsworth, was spent by him in the
purchase of yew-trees, which he planted in
Grasmere churchyard, where they still grow,
and one of which now overshadows the poet's
grave.

In the autumn of 1806, their Grasmere home
at Dove Cottage having become too small for
the Wordsworth family, Sir George Beaumont
offered them the use of the farm-house adjoin-
ing Coleorton Hall. He had been occupying

PREFACE.

xvii

it himself, while alterations were going on at the
Hall; but during the winter of 1806, and the
spring and part of the autumn of 1807, it
became the temporary residence of the Words-
worths — Dorothy, the poet's sister, and Sarah
Hutchinson, his wife's sister, accompanying them.

As will be seen from the letters which follow,
Sir George and Lady Beaumont were greatly
helped by Wordsworth in the formation of their
new winter garden at the Hall. A minute de-
scription of this garden, constructed out of an old
quarry, will be found in pp. 191-209 of this volume.
Before he left Grasmere Wordsworth wrote his
opinion as to the best way in which the grounds
should be laid out ; but it was during that winter
of 1806-7 that his designs were matured, and
definitely adopted at Coleorton. It was a refresh-
ment to him to turn from poetic labour to the
superintendence of the garden, and the direction
of the workmen ; his fundamental principle (which
Coleridge had also stated) being that c the house
should belong to the country, and not the
country be an appendage to the house.' To
b

xviii

PREFACE.

enlarge on this is unnecessary, as the letters
which follow explain themselves ; but it will
interest many to know that the winter garden
at Coleorton retains at this day more memorials
of Wordsworth than the grounds of Rydal Mount
or of Fox Howe.

Coleridge returned from the Continent in the
autumn of 1806. He reached Coleorton on
Christmas day, on a visit to Wordsworth ; and
there it was, in the month of January 1807, in
these Leicestershire fields, on the Ashby road,
in the bypaths round the Hall — and possibly
during walks extended to the forest region of
Charnwood, — that he renewed the fellowship of
the old Quantock days and, in the farm-house
at nights, listened to the solemn recitation of
The Prelude by its author, and afterwards wrote
his own memorable lines upon his brother-bard,
and his

Orphic tale indeed,
A tale of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted.

In the spring of 1 807 Wordsworth went with

PREFACE.

xix

his wife to London for a month ; his sister
Dorothy, and Sarah Hutchinson, remaining in
Leicestershire with the children. Walter Scott
returned with him to Coleorton in the autumn.

Several of Wordsworth's poems were composed
at Coleorton. The Song at the Feast of Brougham
Castle was murmured out on the path between
the farm-house and the Hall, where also the
sonnet beginning

Two voices are there ; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains,

was composed. Other sonnets, as well as the
poem entitled Gipsies, and the lines to the
nightingale beginning

O Nightingale ! thou surely art
A creature of a fiery heart

were thought out in the glades, or on the

roads, or amid the shadowy recesses of the

garden.

But it is with his Inscriptions for the grounds
at Coleorton that the place is chiefly associated.
Two of these were written during his residence

PREFACE.

in 1808; and other two at Grasmere in 1811.
Only three of them, however, were actually
cut on stone, and set up in the grounds. The
one commencing

The embowering rose, the acacia, and the pine
was placed near a magnificent cedar-tree, which
was unfortunately blown down in a gale in 1854.
Though replanted, it fell a second time, during
the great storm of 1880, and perished. The
memorial stone remains, somewhat injured, and
the inscription is more than half obliterated.

The second inscription, written in 1808, 'at
the request of Sir George Beaumont, and in his
name, for an Urn, placed by him at the termina-
tion of a newly-planted avenue/ began thus : —

Ye Lime-trees, ranged before this hallowed Urn,
Shoot forth with lively power at Spring's return ;
And be not slow a stately growth to rear
Of pillars, branching off from year to year,
Till they have learned to frame a darksome aisle ;
That may recall to mind that awful Pile
"Where Reynolds, 'mid our country's noblest dead,
In the last sanctity of fame is laid.

These 'Lime-trees/ planted eighty years ago.

PREFACE.

xxi

now form ' a stately growth of pillars/ e a dark-
some aisle/ as described in the lines ; and the
c Urn* remains as it was set up in 1807, at the
end of the avenue.

The last of the inscriptions set up at Cole-
orton was written by Wordsworth in 1811, during
a morning walk with his sister from Brathay to
Grasmere,, and sent by her to Lady Beaumont.
It was cut in stone at the end of a terrace
walk, at right angles to the avenue of lime-
trees, overlooking the garden, where it is still
to be seen, lichen-covered and weather-worn.

Perhaps the most interesting poem, however,
connected with Coleorton is the sonnet which
Wordsworth addressed to Lady Beaumont in
1807, and which he published the same year. It
requires no comment.

To Lady Beaumont.

Lady ! the songs of spring were in the grove
While I was shaping beds for winter flowers,
While I was planting green unfading bowers,
And shrubs to hang upon the warm alcove,
And sheltering wall ; and still, as fancy wove

xxii

PREFACE.

The dream, to time and nature's blended powers

I gave this paradise for winter hours,

A labyrinth, lady ! which your feet shall rove.

Yes ! when the sun of life more feebly shines,

Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom

Or of high gladness you shall hither bring ;

And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines

Be gracious as the music and the bloom

And all the mighty ravishment of spring.

In 1815 Wordsworth inscribed the first col-
lected edition of his Poems to Sir George, with
the following Epistle Dedicatory : —

' My dear Sir George, — Accept my thanks for
the permission given me to dedicate these Poems
to you. In addition to a lively pleasure derived
from general considerations, I feel a particular
satisfaction ; for, by inscribing them with your
name, I seem to myself in some degree to repay,
by an appropriate honour, the great obligation
which I owe to one part of the Collection — as
having been the means of first making us per-
sonally known to each other. Upon much of
the remainder, also, you have a peculiar claim, —
for some of the best pieces were composed under
the shade of your own groves, upon the classic
ground of Coleorton ; where I was animated by
the recollection of those illustrious Poets of your

PREFACE.

xxiii

Name arid Family, who were born in that neigh-
bourhood ; and, we may be assured, did not
wander with indifference by the dashing stream
of Grace Dieu, and among the rocks that diversify
the forest of Charnwood. Nor is there any one
to whom such parts of this Collection as have been
inspired or coloured by the beautiful country
from which I now address you, could be pre-
sented with more propriety than to yourself —
who have composed so many admirable Pictures
from the suggestions of the same scenery. Early
in life, the sublimity and beauty of this region
excited your admiration ; and I know that you
are bound to it in mind by a still strengthening
attachment.

' Wishing and hoping that this Work may
survive as a lasting memorial of a friendship,
which I reckon among the blessings of my life,
I have the honour to be, my dear Sir George,
yours most affectionately and faithfully,

' William Wordsworth.

e Rijdal Mount, Westmoreland,
' February 1 , 1815.'

Sir George's own work as a landscape artist is
referred to in this Dedication. An early pic-
ture of his suggested one of Wordsworth's most
characteristic poems, viz., the stanzas on Peele

xxiv

PREFACE.

Castle in a Storm. This small oil-painting still
hangs in the picture-gallery at Coleorton, and
to all who see it there,, and remember to what it
gave rise, it will recall

The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream.

Another of the poems was suggested by a pic-
ture, mainly a cloud-scene, from the neighbour-
hood of Coleorton, painted by Sir George, and
sent to Wordsworth : —

Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay
Yon Cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape ;
Nor would permit the thin smoke to escape,
Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day ;
Which stopped that band of travellers on their way,
Ere they were lost within the shady wood ;
And showed the bark upon the glassy flood
For ever anchored in her sheltering bay.
Soul-soothing Art ! which morning, noon-tide, even,
Do serve, with all their changeful pageantry ;
Thou, with ambition modest yet sublime,
Here, for the sight of mortal men, hast given
To one brief moment caught from fleeting time
The appropriate calm of blest Eternity !

Illustrations of The White Doe of Ri/lstone, of

PREFACE.

XXV

The Thorn, of Lucy Gray, and of Peter Bell were
also drawn by Sir George Beaumont, and en-
graved in several editions of Wordsworth's
Poems.1

Sir George's relations with some of his con-
temporary artists were nearly as intimate as with
the poets. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Haydon, Wilkie,
Lawrence, Cozens, and Gibson were all his friends,
and his kindness to young and aspiring artists
was great. He was one of the first to detect
the genius of Wilkie ; and after the success of
The Village Politician, in 1806 — Wilkie being then
twenty years of age — he commissioned him to
paint The Blind Fiddler. In the same year
Wrilkie introduced Haydon to Sir George Beau-
mont, who called on him, and became one of his
early patrons. He at once took Haydon to see
and study the pictures in Ashburnham House,
and in Lord Stafford's gallery.

A few extracts from Haydon' s Autobiography

1 Sir George's illustrations will be found in the edition of
1815 (in both volumes), in the edition of 1820 (in each of the
four volumes), and in the original quarto edition of The White
Doe, and the original octavo of Peter BelL

xxvi

PREFACE.

will cast light on Sir George and Lady Beaumont,
and their life at Coleorton Hall. He wrote thus
in 1807:—

' I must go back a little in order to recall
a very interesting letter which I received from
Sir George Beaumont while painting my pic-
ture, and in the midst of all the difficulties
I experienced in bringing it to a close. This
letter showed his real heart when in the
country, free from the agitation and excitement
of London life. He had a family house at Dun-
mow, Essex ; where his venerable mother lived
in seclusion, and where Sir George generally
visited her between Christmas and spring. Lord
Mulgrave used to quiz him about never allowing
any of his friends to come to Dunmow, declaring
that Sir George had something snug there, which
he did not wish to be seen or known.

' He wrote me —

'"Dunmow, Feb. 28, 1807.

' " It, at first thought, seems rather hard that
such a Birmingham gentleman 1 should, in the
multitude of his converts, proceed without diffi-
culty and with great exaltation, whilst you meet

1 1 I am convinced Sir George alluded to Lawrence. —
B. R. H.'

PREFACE.

xxvii

with struggles and with disappointments ; yet
when you recollect the object of his vanity —
that it has little to do with the mind, that it
will never be approved of by an opinion worthy
the consideration of a man of sense, and that it
is scarcely more valuable than the applause a
rope-dancer receives for his monkey tricks — he
certainly ceases to be an object of envy, whilst
you have the satisfaction of reflecting upon the
value of the object you have in view, and that
although the present pains and troubles are
distressing, yet, when once achieved, not only
will your reward be the approbation of every
man of real taste, but a proper application of the
power acquired will impart useful pleasure, and
ultimately promote the causes of religion and
virtue.

e " I should add that at the time I am under-
valuing mere flippancy of pencil, where pencil-
ling, exclusive of expression, is the object of the
artist (which, by the way, is no bad receipt to
make a French painter), yet I by no means
approve of that blundering, ignorant, clumsy
execution which some have indulged themselves
in. The touch, to my feeling, should be firm,
intelligent, and decisive, and evince a full know-
ledge of the object. This will never be attained
but by profound knowledge of drawing, which,
I am sorry to say, has been much neglected. . . .

xxviii

PREFACE.

6 " I contemplate the friendship which sub-
sists between yourself and Wilkie with peculiar
pleasure. Long may it last, uninterrupted by
misunderstanding of any sort ! I am confident
it will not only render your studies pleasing, but
your honest criticisms of each other cannot fail
of producing mutual advantage. You cannot
impress your mind with too exalted an idea of
your high calling ! " '

c . . . I soon discovered that the accurate
study of a language employs more time than can
be spared from any other leading pursuit. I
wrote to Sir George about it, and in a few
days heard again from Dun mow. Among other
things, he wrote —

"'March 23, 1807.
£ " If you determine to master the languages, it
will cost you much time and much labour, and for
the life of me I cannot conceive how it will ad-
vance your great object. If you saved your eyes,
or strengthened your constitution by air and exer-
cise in the process, I should certainly recommend
the undertaking, but on the contrary, it will
consume the little time you have to spare for the
care of your health, which, whatever a youthful
desire of triumph may at present suggest, is as
necessary as any other qualification for an artist,
and will, without due attention, before you are

PREFACE.

xxix

aware of it, stand a chance of being irretrievably
lost. If you think it necessary to paint from
Homer, the subject and costume may certainly
be as well known from translations and English
comments as from the original.

c " But, for my own part, I have always doubted
the prudence of painting from poets ; for if they
are excellent, you have always the disadvantage
of having an admirable picture to contend with
already formed in the minds of the circle — nay,
different pictures in different minds of your spec-
tators^— and there is a chance, if yours does not
happen to coincide (which is impossible in all
cases}, that justice will not be done you.

e " This remark is particularly applicable to
painting from Shakespeare, when you not only
have the powerful productions of his mind's
pencil to contend with, but also the perverted
representations of the theatres ; which have made
such impressions on most people in early life,
that I, for my part, feel it more difficult to form
a picture in my mind from any scene of his that
I have seen frequently represented, than from
the works of any other poet.

e u Now, if you choose judiciously a subject from
history, you avoid these disadvantages, and the
business will be to make the poetry yourself, and
he who cannot perform this will in vain attempt
to echo the poetry of another. You have asked

XXX

PREFACE.

my opinion, and I have freely given it, but many
will undoubtedly differ from me. I only speak
my genuine feelings." ' 1

Hay don and Wilkie went down on a visit to
Coleorton in 1809, of which Haydon gives the
following account : —

c There had been a great deal of fun at Lord
Mulgrave's about this visit. Sir George, like all
men of fashion, had a way of saying pleasant
things without the least meaning. He was
always full of invitations to Coleorton, and when
he disapproved of my rocks in Dentatus, he
said, " There are some capital rocks at Coleorton
which you and Wilkie must come down and
study. I will write to you as soon as I get
down." When, on his return to town, he again
found fault with the rocks, Lord Mulgrave slily
said, " Haydon, what a pity it was you did
not see those unfortunate rocks at Coleorton";
and when the picture was up, and Sir George
tried to say anything in my defence, Lord Mul-
grave would say, " Ah, Sir George, it is all owing
to those cursed rocks !"

6 Sir George at last, quite ashamed of his wil-
ful forgetfulness, wrote us both a most kind

1 Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, edited by Tom Taylor,
vol. i. pp. 64-67.

PREFACE.

xxxi

invitation while we were in Devonshire ; and so,
the moment we returned to town, off we set for
Coleorton. We got to Ashby-de-la-Zouche at
night, slept there, and the next day posted on to
Coleorton.

6 The house was a small seat, recently built
by Dance in the Gothic style, very near a former
house where Beaumont and Fletcher used to
spend their summers. Sir George, I think, told
us he was descended from the same family as the
dramatist.

c Both he and Lady Beaumont received us very
kindly, but I could not help thinking that it was
more to avoid Lord Mulgrave's future quizzing
than from any real pleasure in our company. As
I was walking with him next day about the
grounds, he said, cc Now I hope you and Wilkie
will stay a fortnight/ ' . . . We passed a fort-
night as delightfully as painters could. Sir
George painted, and Lady Beaumont drew, and
Wilkie and I made our respective studies for
our own purposes. At lunch we assembled and
chatted over what we had been doing, and at
dinner we all brought down our respective
sketches, and cut up each other in great good-
humour.

c We dined with the Claude and Rembrandt
before us, breakfasted with the Rubens landscape,1
1 All now in the National Gallery.

xxxii

PREFACE.

and did nothing, morning, noon, or night, but
think of painting, talk of painting, dream of
painting, and wake to paint again.

c We lingered on the stairs in going up to bed
and studied the effect of candlelight upon each
other, wondering how the shadows could be best
got as clear as they looked. Sometimes Sir
George made Wilkie stand with the light in a
proper direction, and he and I studied the colour.
Sometimes he held the candle himself, and made
Wilkie join me ; at another time he would say,
" Stop where you are. Come here, Wilkie. As-
phalt um thinly glazed over on a cool preparation
I think would do it," and David and I would
suggest something else. We then unwillingly
separated for the night, and rose with the lark,
to go at it again, all of us feeling as jealous as if
we were artists struggling for fame. Wilkie and
Sir George had the best of it, because, after all,
rocks are inanimate ; and seeing that I should be
done up if I did not bring out something to sus-
tain my dignity, I resolved on a study of a horse's
head. Without saying a word, by dinner next
day I painted, full of life and fire, the head of a
favourite horse of Sir George's, and bringing it
in when the party assembled for dinner, I had
the satisfaction of demolishing their little bits of
study, for the size of life effectually done is sure
to carry off the prize.

PREFACE.

xxxiii

' The next morning at breakfast I perceived
that something was brewing in David's head,
and I clearly saw that my championship would
not be a sinecure. Away went David to his
studies, I to my rocks, Sir George to his painting-
room, and Lady Beaumont to her boudoir. Din-
ner was announced, and in stalked David Wilkie
with an exquisite study of an old woman of the
village, in his best style, so that the laurel was
divided ; but they all allowed that nothing could
exceed the eye of my horse.

e One evening I made Lady Beaumont's maid
stand on the staircase with a light behind her,
so as to cast a good shadow on the wall, and
from her I painted an excellent study for Lady
Macbeth. Our fortnight was now fast drawing
to a close^ and Sir George began to lament that
when we had left him he should be compelled
to attend to his coal-mines.

e In the gardens he had a bust of Wordsworth,
and I think a memento of Wilson. Coleorton is
a retired spot; I visited it in 1837, when at
Leicester, and was touched to see it again after
so many years. A group of sculpture had been
added near the hall ; my Macbeth (of which
presently) was on the staircase. Jackson, Lord
Mulgrave_, Sir George and Lady Beaumont,
were all dead, and I walked through the
house in a melancholy stupor ; angry to see the
c

xxxiv

PREFACE.

rooms, where once hung the elite of our now
national pictures, filled with modern works, and
the two superb heads (by Sir Joshua) of Sir
George and Lady Beaumont pushed high up to
make way for some commonplace trash.

c Sir George said to us one day at dinner,
" Wordsworth may perhaps walk in ; if he do, I
caution you both against his terrific democratic
notions." This was in 1809, and considering the
violence of his subsequent conservatism, it is a
curious fact to recall/ 1

1815. — cSir George Beaumont and I had now
made up our differences.2 He called, and said
he must have a picture, and advanced me fifty
guineas. I said I hoped he would not wish
for anything less than life. He replied, Cer-
tainly not, and at a price not to exceed 200
guineas. Sir George's heart was always tender,
but he was capricious.

* * * * *

' Before Sir George left town he sent me a
letter which I recommend to the youthful
student, as I do all his letters, as models of
sound advice both on art and conduct.

1 Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, vol. i. pp. 133-135.

3 These arose out of a painting of Macbeth, which Sir George
had commissioned Haydon to execute. They lasted during
1809 and 1810, and are fully narrated in Haydon's Auto-
biography, but need not be enlarged on here.

PREFACE.

XXXV

' He wrote (July 1,1815):—

e ce As your sincere well-wisher, I earnestly
require you to abstain from all writing, except
on broad and general subjects, chiefly allusive
to your art. If any severe or unjust remarks
are made on you or your works, paint them
down. You can. But if you retort in words,
action will produce reaction, and your whole
remaining life will be one scene of pernicious
contention. Your mind, which should be a
mansion for all lovely thoughts, will be for
ever disturbed by angry and sarcastic move-
ments, and you will never be in a state to sit
down to your easel with that composed dignity
which your high calling demands."

cl answered this by assuring him that since
my attack on the Royal Academy (in which I
shall glory to the day of my death), I had never
written a line in attack, nor would I ever again ;
that I had long been thoroughly convinced that
to paint my way to my great object was the
only plan/ 1

1816. — 'About this time I had written to Sir
George Beaumont for pecuniary assistance. In
hi s reply, after granting me the aid I wanted,
he wrote : —

i Life of Benjamin Robert Hay don, vol. i. pp. 306, 307.

xxxvi

PREFACE.

c " Pray excuse me if I again take the oppor-
tunity of recommending some profitable mode
of practice. I know you object to portraits,
although the dignity you would be able to give
them, so far from degrading, would greatly add
to your reputation ; and the greatest artists have
not considered the practice as beneath their notice.

c u Again, painting fancy - heads and other
smaller works would be a relief from severer
studies, and be very likely to answer the purpose.

Indeed, my dear sir, you must attend to
this necessary concern, or circumstances more
mortifying than what I recommend cannot fail
to attend you. Recollect how immediately the
head of the Gipsy sold ! "

' This letter was prophetic ; but all my friends
were always advising me what to do, instead of
advising the Government what to do for me.
Now a different course, I have no hesitation in
saying, would have prevented my necessities and
developed what powers I had.

' Dear Sir George's advice was kind and good,
but it was yielding the question of public sup-
port ; and as I had made up my mind to bring
that about by storm, I disdained Sir George's
timid caution, and flew at my picture, come
what might/ 1

1 Life, vol. i. pp. 368, 369.

PREFACE.

xxxvii

July 25, 1826. — c Lawrence and Sir George
Beaumont are the two most perfect gentlemen I
ever saw, — both naturally irritable and waspish,
but both controlling every feeling which is in-
compatible with breeding.

e At a large party once at a hotel in Jermyn
Street, to breakfast with Sir Walter Scott, Sir
George remained a long time with his empty
cup waiting for tea. The conversation being
lively, he was forgotten by Sir Walter, and I sat
watching him to observe how he would bear it.
It was quite a study to see how admirably Sir
George, by anecdotes, and laughing, and listening,
all of which was intentional, kept everybody
from believing he was neglected, or thought
himself so. At last his cup caught Sir Walter's
eye ; he filled it, with an apology, and Sir
George took it as if he had then only been
thirsty, and as if on the whole his tea was a
great deal better than if he had had it sooner.
It was exquisitely done. Lawrence is not so
inherently a gentleman. His air looks like
obedience ; in Beaumont it wras like delicacy/ 1

In 1827, Haydon wrote of Sir George Beau-
mont : —

e Sir George was an extraordinary man, one of

i Life, vol. ii. pp. 148, 149.

xxxviii

PREFACE.

the old school formed by Sir Joshua, — a link
between the artist and the nobleman, elevating
the one by an intimacy which did not depress the
other. Born a painter, his fortune prevented the
necessity of application for subsistence, and of
course he did not apply. His taste was exquisite,
not peculiar or classical, but essentially Shake-
spearian. Painting was his great delight. He
talked of nothing else, and would willingly have
done nothing else. His ambition was to connect
himself with the Art of the country ^ and he has
done it for ever. For though Angerstein's pic-
tures were a great temptation,, yet without Sir
George Beaumont's offer of his own collection,
it is a question if they would have been pur-
chased. He is justly entitled to be considered
as the founder of the National Gallery. His
great defect was a want of moral courage ; what
his taste dictated to be right he would shrink
from asserting, if it shocked the prejudices of
others, or put himself to a moment's inconve-
nience. With great benevolence he appeared,
therefore, often mean ; with exquisite taste, he
seemed often to judge wrong; and with a great
wish to do good, he often did a great deal of
harm. He seemed to think that to bring forth
unacknowledged talent from obscurity was more
meritorious than to support it when acknowledged.
The favourite of this year was forgotten the next.

PREFACE.

xxxix

' His loss, with all his faults, will not easily
be supplied. He founded the National Gallery.
Let him be crowned ! Peace to him ! ' 1

Haydon's reference to Sir George as the
founder of our National Gallery deserves more
than a passing notice. In 1824 Angerstein's
pictures were bought by the State, and these
formed the original nucleus of the collection ;
but in 1826 Sir George added sixteen of his
own pictures, including specimens by Claude,
Rembrandt, Rubens, Wilson, and Wilkie ; and
there is no doubt that it was to his appeals, his
tact, and his gifts, that the founding of what
is now one of the finest Art Treasuries in the
world — our National Gallery in Trafalgar Square
— was mainly due.

He died on 7th February 1827j, at the age of
seventy-three, and was buried in the Church of
Coleorton, near the Hall, leaving behind him a
sunny memory of goodness and graciousness.
Lady Beaumont, to whom many of the letters
in the following volumes are addressed, survived
1 Life, vol. ii. pp. 161, 162.

PREFACE.

him little more than two years. Of her, Henry
Crabb Robinson wrote in his Diary, in March
1823, e She is a gentlewoman of great sweetness
and dignity, I should think amongst the most
interesting persons in the country/

In November 1830 Wordsworth visited Cole-
orton for a week, and rode thence to Cambridge ;
composing on the way some elegiac stanzas in
memory of his departed friend. From Cam-
bridge he wrote to Sir William Rowan Hamilton
at the Dublin Observatory : ' Thirty-seven miles
did I ride in one day, through the worst of storms ;
and what was my recourse ? Writing verses to
the memory of my departed friend, Sir George
Beaumont, whose house I had left the day
before.' 1 The following are the opening lines
of these Elegiac Musings in the Grounds of Cole-
orton Hall, to which is prefixed the sentence —

In these grounds stands the Parish Church, wherein is
a mural monument bearing an Inscription, which, in
deference to the earnest request of the deceased, is

1 Life of Sir W. Rowan Hamilton, by Archdeacon Graves,
vol. i. p. 402.

PREFACE.

xli

confined to name, dates, and these words : — c Enter
not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord ! '

With copious eulogy in prose or rhyme
Graven on the tomb we struggle against Time,
Alas, how feebly ! but our feelings rise
And still we struggle when a good man dies ;
Such offering Beaumont dreaded and forbade,
A spirit meek in self-abasement clad.
Yet here at least, though few have numbered days
That shunned so modestly the light of praise,
His graceful manners, and the temperate ray
Of that arch fancy which would round him play,
Brightening a converse never known to swerve
From courtesy and delicate reserve ;
That sense, the bland philosophy of life,
Which checked discussion ere it warmed to strife ;
Those rare accomplishments, and varied powers,
Might have their record among sylvan bowers.
Oh, fled for ever ! vanished like a blast
That shook the leaves in myriads as it passed ; —
Gone from this world of earth, air, sea, and sky,
From all its spirit-moving imagery,
Intensely studied with a painter's eye,
A poet's heart ; and, for congenial view,
Portrayed with happiest pencil, not untrue
To common recognitions while the line
Flowed in a course of sympathy divine.
Etc. etc. etc.

An extract from a letter of South ey's to Allan

xlii

PREFACE.

Cunningham, written on June 3, 1833, gives his
estimate of Sir George's character : —

c Keswick, June 3, 1833.

'My dear Allan, — . . . Sir George Beau-
mont's marriage was in 1774,1 the year of my
birth ; he spent that summer here : and Far-
ingdon was with him part of the time, taking
up their quarters in the little inn by Low-
dore. Hearne, also, was with him here, either
that year or soon afterwards, and made for
him a sketch of the whole circle of this vale,
from a field called Crow Park. Sir George
intended to build a circular banqueting-room,
and have this painted round the walls. If the
execution had not always been procrastinated,
here would have been the first panorama. I
have seen the sketch, now preserved on a roll
more than twenty feet in length.

c Sir George's death was not from any decay.
His mother lived some years beyond ninety, and
his health had greatly improved during the
latter years of his life. He was never better
than when last in this country, a very few
months before his death. The seizure was
sudden : after breakfast, as he was at work
upon a picture, he fainted ; erysipelas presently

1 Southey has given the date inaccurately. Sir George was
married in 1778.

PREFACE.

xliii

showed itself upon the head, and soon proved
fatal.

e I know that he painted with much more
ardour in his old age than at other times of his
life,, and I believe that his last pictures were his
best. In one point I thought him too much of
an artist ; none of his pictures represented the
scene from which he took them ; he took the
features, and disposed them in the way which
pleased him best. Whenever you enter these
doors of mine, you shall see a little piece of his
(the only one I have), which perfectly illustrates
this : the subject is this very house, and scarcely
any one object in the picture resembles the
reality. His wish was, to give the character,
the spirit of the scene. But whoever may look
upon this picture hereafter, with any thought of
me, will wish it had been a faithful portrait of
the place.

c He was one of the happiest men I ever
knew, for he enjoyed all the advantages of his
station, and entered into none of the follies to
which men are so easily tempted by wealth and
the want of occupation. His disposition kept
him equally from all unworthy and all vexatious
pursuits. He had as little liking for country
sports, as for public business of any kind, but had
a thorough love for art and nature. And if one
real affliction or one anxiety ever crossed his path

xliv

PREFACE.

in any part of his life, I never heard of it. I
verily believe that no man ever enjoyed the
world more ; and few were more humbly, more
wisely, more religiously prepared for entering
upon another state of existence.

' He became acquainted with Coleridge here,
before I came into this country ; this led to his
friendship with Wordsworth, and to his acquaint-
ance with me (for more than acquaintance it can
hardly be called). He has lodged more than
once in this house, when it was in an unfinished
state : this very room he occupied before the
walls were plastered.

' Next to painting and natural scenery, he
delighted in theatricals more than in anything
else. Few men read so well, and I have heard
those who knew him intimately say that he would
have made an excellent actor/ 1

To this may be added an extract from Sir

Walter Scott's Diary, February 14, 1827 :—

6 Sir George Beaumont 's dead ; by far the
most sensible and pleasing man I ever knew,
kind, too, in his nature, and generous — gentle
in society, and of those mild manners which tend
to soften the causticity of the general London

1 Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, edited by the
Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, vol. vi. pp. 215-217.

PREFACE.

xlv

tone of persiflage and personal satire. As an
amateur painter he was of the very highest dis-
tinction ; and though I know nothing of the
matter, yet I should hold him a perfect critic
in painting, for he always made his criticisms
intelligible, and used no slang. I am very sorry
— as much as it is in my nature to be — for one
whom I could see but seldom/ 1

Scott's opening sentence suggests a remark by
Sir Humphry Davy, also a friend of the Beau-
monts : —

e Sir George is a remarkably sensible man,
which I mention because it is somewhat remark-
able in a painter of genius, who is at the same
time a man of rank, and an exceedingly amusing
companion/ 2

It would be out of place to make any comment
in this Preface upon the Letters themselves,
which follow. It was at first intended to arrange
them in five sections, under the names of their
respective writers, but in order to give variety to
the story they tell, and to avoid traversing the

1 Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. ix. pp. 89-90.

2 Fragmentary Remains of Sir Humphry Davy, p. 96.

xlvi

PREFACE.

same ground more than once, it was afterwards
resolved to print them in chronological order,
as a continuous narrative. Several things in
them will have the interest of novelty to most
readers ; and I cannot think that their publica-
tion in this form will anticipate the interest of
forthcoming works on some of the writers and
their friends, such as Mr. Ernest Coleridge's Life
of his grandfather, Samuel Taylor Coleridge —
which, from the store of new material it must
contain, will be universally looked for with the
keenest interest, — Mrs. Sandford's Life of Thomas
Poole of Nether Stowey, or my own Life of
Wordsworth. I believe the publication of these
Letters will serve their own purpose, of per-
petuating the ' Memorials of Coleorton/ and will
only quicken the interest of appreciative readers
in any larger works that follow.

WILLIAM KNIGHT.

LETTERS.

COLEORTON LETTERS.

Coleridge to Sir George and Lady Beaumont.

Greta Hall, Keswick, Friday, Aug. 12, 1803.

Dear Sir George and Lady Beaumont, — I re-
turned, an hour and a half after your de-
parture, with Hartley and Derwent, and with

Wordsworth, his wife, sister, and the baby.

# * # * > i

There is a something in all the good and deep
emotions of our nature, that would ever prevent
me from purposely getting out of the way of them
— it was painful to me to anticipate that you
would be gone, painful to find that you were
gone ; and I only endeavoured to satisfy myself
with the thought, that it would have been more
painful to have taken leave of you. It will give
a lasting interest to the Drawing of the Water-
fall, that I first saw it through tears. I wa&

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

indeed unwell, and sadly nervous ; and I must
not be ashamed to confess to you, my honoured
friends, that I found a bodily relief in weep-
ing, and yielded to it. On Tuesday evening

Mr. R , the author of < The ... of

. . . / drank tea and spent the evening with
us at Grasmere — and this had produced a
very unpleasant effect on my spirits. Words-
worth's mind and body are both of a stronger
texture than mine, and he has passions, that
have made their Pandemonium in the crazy
hovel of that poor man's heart — but I was
downright melancholy at the sight. If to be
a poet or a man of genius entailed on us the
necessity of housing such company in our
bosoms, I would pray the very flesh off my
knees to have a head as dark and unfurnished
as Wordsworth's old Molly1 has, if only I might
have a heart as careless and as loving. But
God be praised ! these unhappy beings are
neither poets nor men of sense. Enough of
them ! Forgive me, dear Sir George, but I
could not help being pleased that the man dis-
liked you, and your Lady, and he lost no time in
letting us know it. If I believed it possible that
the man liked me, upon my soul I should feel

COLERIDGE.

exactly as if I were tarred and feathered. I
have a cowardly dread of being hated even by
bad men ; but in this instance disgust comes in
to my assistance, and the greater dread of being
called Friend. I do seriously believe that the
chief cause of Wordsworth's and Southey's
having been classed with me, as a school, origi-
nates entirely in our not hating or envying each
other. It is so unusual that three professed
Poets, in every respect unlike each other, should
nevertheless take pleasure in each others wel-
fare and reputation. What a refreshment of
heart did I not find last night in Cowper's
Letters ! Their very defects suited me. Had
they been of a higher class, as exhibitions of
intellect, they would have less satisfied the then
craving of my mind. I had taken up the book
merely as connected with you ; and had I
hunted through all the Libraries of Oxford and
Cambridge I should have found no one that would
have been so delightful on its own account.

The Wordsworths are gone to Applethwaite
with Mrs. Coleridge. It would be no easy mat-
ter to say how much they were delighted with
the two Drawings — as two poems ; how much
affected by them, as marks of your kindness

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

and attention. O dear Sir George, indeed, in-
deed my heart is very full toward you and Lady
Beaumont ; it is a very mixed feeling, and
gratitude expresses but a small part of it.

Poor little Derwent has been in such a crowd,
that he did not seem to know that you were
gone, till this afternoon, when we two had the
house to ourselves. Then he went to your
room, and he has been crying piteously, 'Lady
Beaumont's gone away, and I will be a naughty
boy; Lady Beaumont's gone away/ He is a
very affectionate little fellow.

If my health permit, we are to commence
our tour on Monday, but this is very uncertain.
I have now no doubt that my complaint is
atonic gout ; and though the excitement and exer-
cise which the journey will afford would be of
service to me, yet the chance of rainy weather
and damp beds is a very serious business. I am
rather better this evening ; but I incline still to
go to Malta with Stoddart, or to Madeira —
which I can do at the same expense as I can
make the Scotch tour. I shall settle this in the
course of to-morrow, and by to-morrow's night
post shall send you a large coarse sheet, contain-
ing the Leech-Gatherer, which Miss Wordsworth

COLERIDGE.

has copied out, and such of my own verses as
appeared to please you. I have written a strange
rambling letter — for in truth I have written
under a sort of perplexity of moral feeling, — my
head prompting respect, my heart confident
affectionateness ; the one tells me it is my first
letter to you, the other lets me know that
unless I write to you as old friends I cannot
write to you at all. Be so good therefore as
with your wonted kindness to think of this
letter as of a sort of awkward bow on entering
a room. I shall find myself more at my ease
when I have sat down. Believe me, I write
everyday words with no everyday feeling, when
I subscribe myself, dear Sir George, and dear
Lady Beaumont, with affectionate esteem, your
obliged and grateful S. T. Coleridge.

1 His servant. — Ed.

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[sept.

Coleridge to Sir George and Lady Beaumont.

Greta Hall, Keswick, Sept 22, 1803.

My dear Sir George and dear Lady Beaumont,
— I reached my home this day week. Need I
say that I have been ill,, or that I should have
written immediately ? The attacks of the gout,
now no longer doubtful, have become formidable
in the stomachy and my nature is making con-
tinual, though hitherto, alas ! fruitless efforts to
throw the disease into the extremities ; and, as
it never rains but it pours, I have an intermittent
fever, with severe hemicrania, which returns
every evening at half-past five, and has hitherto
baffled the use of bark. Yet I am strong, and
have far better appetite than usual, and never in
my life looked so well, which is owing in part to
the tan from sun, wind, and rain.

At Perth I received two letters from Southey,
the first informing me of his approaching loss,
the second of his arrival at Keswick. I altered
my plans immediately — took my place in the
mail, and hastened home to yield him what small

COLERIDGE.

comfort my society might afford. Previously to
my taking the coach, I had walked 263 miles in
eight days, in the hope of forcing the disease into
the extremities — and so strong am I, that I
would undertake at this present time to walk
50 miles a day for a week together. In short,
while I am in possession of my will and my
reason, I can keep the fiend at arm's length ;
but with the night my horrors commence.
During the whole of my journey three nights
out of four I have fallen asleep struggling and
resolving to lie awake, and awaking have blest
the scream which delivered me from the reluc-
tant sleep. Nine years ago I had three months'
visitation of this kind, and I was cured by a
sudden throwing off of a burning corrosive acid.
These dreams, with all their mockery of guilt,
rage, unworthy desires, remorse, shame, and
terror, formed at that time the subject of some
Verses, which I had forgotten till the return of
the complaint, and which I will send you in my
next as a curiosity. But God be praised ! though
it be hard to bear up, I do bear up, in the deep
faith that all things work together for good to
him who in the simplicity of his heart desires
good. To-morrow I expect to receive the new

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[sept.

gout medicine from Welles, who in consequence
of a request from my friend Dr. Beddoes, has
written me a very obliging letter. If he cure
me^ I will raise up a new sect in his honour, and
make a greater clamour in his favour as the Anti-
podagra, u that was to come, and is already in the
world/' than even the Puritans did against the
poor Pope, as the Antichrist.

I left Wordsworth and his sister at Loch
Lomond. I was so ill that I felt myself a bur-
then on them, and the exercise was too much for
me, and yet not enough. I sent my clothes, etc.,
forward to Edinburgh, and walked myself to Glen-
coe, and so on as far as Cullen, then back again to
Inverness, and thence over that most desolate and
houseless country by Aviemore, Dalnacardoch,
Dalwhinny, Tummel Bridge, Kenmore, to Perth,
with various digressions and mountain climbings.
At the Bridge of the Sark, which divides Eng-
land from Scotland, I determined to write to you.
At the foot of Loch Ketterin, under the agitation
of delight produced by the Trossachs, I began a
letter to you, but my fits became so violent and
alarming that I was truly incapable of doing
more than taking a few notes in my pocket-
book. At Fort William, on entering the public-

COLERIDGE.

house I fell down in an hysterical fit, with long
and loud weeping, to my own great metaphysical
amusement, and the unutterable consternation and
beboozlement of the landlord, his wife, children,
and servants, who all gabbled Gaelic to each
other, and sputtered out short-winded English to
me in a strange style. So much e all about my-
self/ I will send you my whole tour in the
course of the ensuing fortnight, in two or three
successive letters. Wordsworths will be home,
Deo volente, on Saturday. Poor Mrs. Southey
droops, but not so much as I expected : and I
suspect and hope that the best consolation is
about to be given them. Southey, who is a very
amiable man, and very much improved in every
respect, bears it well. It is a loss which will
never leave his memory, nor master his fortitude
and resignation.

My dear and honoured friends, my spirit has
been with you day after day. Yesterday after
noon I found among Southey' s books a tetra-
glott edition of Pascal's Provincial Letters.
I seized it, O how eagerly ! It seemed to me as
if I saw Lady Beaumont with my very eyes, and
heard over again the very sounds of these words,
in which she had expressed her enthusiastic

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[sept.

admiration of him. Though but a wretched
French scholar, I did not go to bed before I had
read the Preface and the two first Letters. They
are not only excellent, but the excellence is
altogether of a new kind to me. Wit, irony,
humour, sarcasm, scholastic subtlety, and pro-
found metaphysics all combined — and this strange
combination still more strangely co-existing with
childlike simplicity, innocence, unaffected charity,
and the very soul of Christian humility. And
the style is a robe of pure light.

We have Mr. Clarkson here, so that we have a
houseful, and my wife is chin-deep in occupation
with the children and the meals — for we have
but one servant, and can procure no other till
November. She will however write to Lady B.
in answer to her kind letter of to-day, as speedily
as possible. I send with this a sheet full of
verses, that I had promised. Your kindness,
my dear Sir G.,'will make you think them almost
worth the postage. In a few weeks I shall, if
I live and am tolerably well, send you three
specimens of my Translations from your Draw-
ings. If you should really like them, I will go
on and make a volume. I cannot help saying,
and it seems as if I had more love toward you

1803] COLERIDGE. 11

than toward myself in my heart while I am
saying it, that I myself have been unusually
pleased with what I have done. — My honoured
friends ! with unaffected esteem, gratitude, and
affectionate admiration, ever yours,

S. T. C.

12 COLEORTON LETTERS. [OCT.

Coleridge to Sir George and Lady Beaumont.

Keswick, Oct. 1, 1803, 11 o'clock

My dear and honoured Friends, — I received
your kind letter this afternoon, and yet have
but this moment read it. I have been fighting
up against so severe a tooth and face ache.
Every morning since my last, I have risen cal-
culating on the pleasure — and indeed it is a very
great one — of writing a long letter to you ; but
what with the disease, and what with the medi-
cine, I have been unable to do anything but read
in silence, or listen to my friends' recitations.
Mr. Edmondson has no doubt that I have gout,
but very serious doubts whether my worst suffer-
ings do not originate in an affection of the mesen-
teric glands. However, I shall give a fair trial

to this new gout medicine.

* * * * *

O dear Sir George ! you bid one < above all
things abstain from reading at night/ Believe
me, nine times out of ten I have transgressed in
this way, only from the dread of falling asleep ;

COLERIDGE.

and I contracted the habit from awaking in
terrors about an hour after I had fallen asleep, and
from the being literally afraid to trust myself
again out of the leading-strings of my will and
reason. So I have lit my candle, stirred up my
fire, and studied till daylight. I fear, I fear,
that a hot climate is my only medicine ; and it
seems better to die than to live out of England.
I have been extremely affected by the death of
young Emmett — just 24 ! At that age, dear Sir
George, I was retiring from politics, disgusted
beyond measure by the manners and morals of
the Democrats^ and fully awake to the incon-
sistency of my practice with my speculative
principles. c My speculative principles were wild
as dreams/ They were ' dreams linked to pur-
poses of reason ' ; but they were perfectly harm-
less,— a compound of Philosophy and Christianity.
They were Christian — for they demanded the
direct reformation and voluntary act of each indi-
vidual person to any change in his outward circum-
stances ; and my whole plan of Revolution was
confined to an experiment with a dozen families
in the wilds of America. They were philo-
sophical— because I contemplated a possible
consequent amelioration of the human race in

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[OCT.

its present state, and in this world ; yet Christian
still, because I regarded this earthly amelioration
as important chiefly for its effects on the future
state of the race of man so ameliorated. Dear
good Mrs. Carter thought wisely and accurately
as well as charitably. For what is the nature of
the beauty of youth ? Is it not this — to know
what is right in the abstract, by a living feeling,
by an intuition of the uncorrupted heart? to
body forth this abstract right in beautiful forms ?
and lastly, to project the phantom-world into the
world of reality, like a catoptrical mirror ? Say
rather, to make ideas and realities stand side by
side, the one as vivid as the other; even as I have
often seen in a natural well of translucent water
the reflections of the lank weeds that hung down
from its sides standing upright and like Sub-
stances among the substantial water-plants that
were growing on the bottom ; and thus far all
was well — the mists of the dawn of Reason
coloured by the rich clouds that precede the
rising sun. But my relations, and the Church-
men and ' Aristocrats ' — to use the phrase of the
day — these too conceited my phantoms to be
substances, only what I beheld as Angels they saw
as Devils ; and, though they never ceased to talk

COLERIDGE.

of my youth as a proof of the falsehood of my
opinions, they never introduced it as an extenua-
tion of the error. My opinions were the drivel
of a babe, but the guilt attached to them, this
was the grey hair and rigid muscle of inveterate
depravity. To such bigotry what was an enthu-
siastic young man likely to oppose ? They
abhorred my person, I abhorred their actions;
they set up the long howl of hydrophoby at my
principles, and I repaid their hatred and terror
by the bitterness of contempt. Who then
remained to listen to me ? to be kind to me ? to
be my friends ? to look at me with kindness, to
shake my hand with kindness? to open the door,
and spread the hospitable board, and to let me
feel that I was a man well-beloved? — me, who
from my childhood have had no avarice, no
ambition, whose very vanity in my vainest
moments was nine-tenths of it the desire, and
delight, and necessity of loving, and of being
beloved ? These offices of love the Democrats
only performed to me ; my own family, bigots
from ignorance, remained wilfully ignorant from
bigotry. What wonder then if in the heat of
grateful affection, and the unguarded desire of
sympathising with those who so kindly sympa-

COLEORTON LETTERS.

thised with me, I too often deviated from my
own principles ? and though I detested Revolutions
in my calmer moments, as attempts, that were
necessarily baffled and made blood-horrible by
the very causes which could alone justify Revo-
lutions (I mean the ignorance, superstition, pro-
fligacy, and vindictive passions, which are the
natural effects of despotism and false religion) —
and though even to extravagance I always sup-
ported the doctrine of absolute unequivocal non-
resistance — yet with an ebullient fancy, a flowing
utterance, a light and dancing heart, and a dis-
position to catch time by the very rapidity of my
own motion, and to speak vehemently from mere
verbal associations, choosing sentences and senti-
ments for the very reason that would have made
me recoil with a dying away of the heart and an
unutterable horror from the actions expressed in
such sentences and sentiments — namely, because
they were wild and original, and vehement and
fantastic, I aided the Jacobins, by witty sarcasms
and subtle reasoning, and declarations full of
genuine feeling against all rulers and against all
established forms ! Speaking in public at Bristol
I adverted to a public supper which had been
given by Lord , I forget his name, in honour

COLERIDGE.

of a victory gained by the Austrians; and, after a
turbid stream of wild eloquence, I said, ' This is
a true Lord's Supper in the communion of dark-
ness ! This is a Eucharist of Hell ! a sacrament
of misery ! over each morsel and each drop of
which the spirit of some murdered innocent cries
aloud to God; This is my body ! and this is my
Blood ! ' These words form, alas ! a faithful
specimen of too many of my declamations at that
time,, and, fortunately for me, the Government,
I suppose, knew that both Southey and I were
utterly unconnected with any party, or club, or
society ; and this praise I must take to myself,
that I disclaimed all these societies, these imperia
in imperio, these ascarides in the bowels of the
State, subsisting on the weakness and diseased-
ness,"and having for their final object the death
of that State, whose life had been their birth
and growth, and continued to be their sole
nourishment. All such societies, under what-
ever name, I abhorred as wicked conspiracies ;
and to this principle I adhered immoveably,
simply because it was a principle, and this at a
time when the danger attached to the opposite
mode of conduct would have been the most
seducing temptation to it ; at a time when, in

18 COLEORTON LETTERS. [OCT.

rejecting these secret associations, often as I
was urged to become a member, now of this, and
now of that, I felt just as a religious young
officer may be supposed to feel, who, full of
courage, dares refuse a challenge, and, considered
as a coward by those around him, often shuts
his eyes, and anticipates the moment when he
might leap on the wall, and stand in the breach,
the first and the only one. This insulation of
myself and Southey I suppose the Ministers
knew — knew that we were boys, or rather, per-
haps, Southey was at Lisbon, and I at Stowey,
sick of politics, and sick of democrats and
democracy, before the Ministers had ever heard
of us : for our career of sedition, our obedience
and sympathy and pride of talent in opposition
to our own, certainly to my own uniform prin-
ciples, lasted but ten months. Yet, if in that
time I had been imprisoned, as in the rigour of
the law I doubt not I might have been fifty
times — for the very clank of the chains that
were to be put about my limbs would not at
that time have deterred me from a strong phrase
or striking metaphor, although I had had no
other inducement to the use of the same, except
the wantonness of luxuriant imagination, and

COLERIDGE.

my aversion to abstain from anything simply
because it was dangerous — yet, if in that time
I had been imprisoned, my health and constitu-
tion were such as that it would have been almost
as certain death to me as the executioner has
been to poor young Emmett. Like him, I was
very young, very enthusiastic, distinguished by
talents and requirements, and a sort of morbid
eloquence ; like him, I was a zealous partisan of
Christianity, and despiser and abhorrer of French
philosophy and French morals ; like him, I
would have given my body to be burned inch
by inch rather than that a French army should
have insulted my native shores ; and alas ! alas !
like him, I was unconsciously, yet actively,
aiding and abetting the plans that I abhorred,
and the men who were more, far more unlike
me in every respect, in education, habits, prin-
ciples, and feelings, than the most anathematised
aristocrat among my opponents. Alas ! alas !
unlike me, he did not awake. The country in
which he lived furnished far more plausible
arguments for his active zeal than England could
do. The vices of the party with whom he acted
were so palpably the effect of darkest ignorance
and foulest oppression that they could not dis-

20 COLEORTON LETTERS. [OCT*

gust him ; the worse the vices, and the more
he abhorred them, the more he loved the men
themselves, abstracting the men from their
vices, the vices from the men, and transferring
them, with tenfold guilt, to the state of society,
and to the Orange faction, holding together that
state of society, which he believed to be the
cause of these vices. Ah, woe is me ! and in
this mood the poor young enthusiast sent forth
that unjustifiable proclamation, one sentence of
which clearly permitted unlimited assassination ;
the only sentence, beyond all doubt, which
Emmett would gladly have blotted out with his
heart's blood, and of which, at the time he wrote
it, he could not have seen the import, and the
only sentence which was fully realised in action.
This moment it was a few unweighed words of
an impassioned visionary ; in the next moment it
became the foul murder of Lord Kilwarden. O
my heart, give praise, give praise ! not that I was
preserved from bonds, or ignominy, or death,
but that I was preserved from crimes that it is
almost impossible not to call guilt. And poor
young Emmett ! O, if our Ministers had saved
him, had taken his oath and word of honour to
have remained in America or some of our colonies

COLERIDGE.

for the next ten years of his life, we might have
had in him a sublimely great man ; we assuredly
should have had in him a good man, and heart
and soul an Englishman. Think of Lord Mans-
field ! About the age of poor Emmett, he drank
the Pretender's health on his knees, and was
obnoxious to all the pains and penalties of high
treason. And where lies the difference between
the two ? Murray's plot had for its object a foul
slavery under the name of loyalty ; Emmett' s as
foul a slavery under the name of liberty and
independence. But whatever the Ministers may
have done, Heaven dealt kindly with the young
man. He has died firm, and in the height and
heat of his spirit, beholding in his partisans only
the wickedly oppressed, in his enemies the
wicked oppressors. O, if his mad, mad enter-
prise had succeeded ! then most mistaken and
bewildered young man, if other punishment than
the death thou hast suffered be needful for thy
deadly error, what better punishment, what fitter
purgatory, can be imagined, than a vision pre-
sented to thee, and conceived as real — a vision
of all the massacres, the previous passions, the
blasphemies, sensualities, superstitions, and the
bloody persecutions, and mutual cannibalism of

22 COLEORTON LETTERS. [OCT.

atheist and Papist that would have rushed in,
like a torrent of sulphur and burning chaos, at
the breach which thou thyself hadst made — till
thou, yea, even thou thyself, hadst called out in
agony to the merciless Gaul, and invoked any
army of slave fiends to crush the more enormous
evil of a mob of fiends in anarchy ? My honoured
friends, as I live, I scarcely know what I have
been writing; but the very circumstance of
writing to you, added to the recollection of the
unwise and unchristian feelings with which, at
poor Emmett's age, / contemplated all persons
of your rank in society, and that recollection
confronted with my present feelings towards
you, it has agitated me, dear friends, and I have
written, my heart at a full gallop, down hill.
And now good-night ; I will finish this letter
to-morrow morning. The moon is in the very
height and ( keystone ' of the sky, and all the
mountains through the whole vale are in conse-
quence things of the earth. A few hours ago,
when the moon was rising from behind Latterig,
and when the clouds on Causa and Grisedale
Pikes, opposite my study window, caught its
' light/ then all the mountains belonged to the
sky. No one who has not suffered what I suffer

COLERIDGE.

in my sleep can conceive the depth and fervour
with which I wish that you may be asleep,
dreamless, or with such dreams as leave no other
trace behind them but the dim recollection
that you had been dreaming. — Sunday morning,
1 o'clock

Sunday, Noon. — I was much affected by the
beautiful passage which Lady Beaumont was so
good as to extract from her sister's letter. I
would that she and you two were all here even
now, and looking out from my study window.
Great indeed is the charm which yearning
memory gives to the forms of things. The pre-
sent would plead its cause most eloquently from
Skiddaw (Swinside), rich with all the hues of
decaying fern, the colour of the unripe lime, of
the ripe lemon, of the bright orange even to
the depth of dried orange-peel ; and when the
whole shall have become of this last colour, then
the decaying birches will have put on the very
same lovely lemon colour which the ferns have in
their middle stage of decay. How kind Nature is
to us ! Where decay is pernicious, she renders it
offensive, as in all animal substances ; but where
it is innocuous, she makes it rival the spring-tide

24 COLEORTON LETTERS. [OCT.

growth in beauty. I use the word c Nature'
partly to avoid the too frequent use of a more
awful name, and partly to indulge the sense of
the motherliness of general providence, when the
heart is not strong enough to lift itself up to
a distinct contemplation of the Father of all
things.

It gives me sincere pleasure that my Ode has
pleased you ; somehow or other I hope to finish
it. I have sent Lady Beaumont the poems
entitled Chamouny, the Inscription for the
Fountain, and Tranquillity. Of the poems on
your sketches, dear Sir George, I hope thus
much, that they will give evidence that the
drawings acted upon my mind as Nature does,
in its after-workings — they have mingled with
my thoughts and furnished forms to my feel-
ings. South ey seems very happy at present.
His eyes plague him ; but he is a hard task-
master to them. He is the most industrious
man I know, or have ever known. His present
occupations are, the recomposition of his Madoc,
an epic poem, and his great History of Portugal,
of which he has written considerably more than
a quarto volume. We have not heard of or from
Hazlitt. He is at Manchester, we suppose, and

COLERIDGE.

has both portraits with him. The children are
all well, and Derwent is a cube of fat. Little
Sara must be on the brink of teething ; she is
nine months old, and has no signs of a tooth ;
the next two months will probably be a hard
time for her. The pain and dangerous diseases
incident to teething I have ever regarded as the
most anomalous of the dispensations of Nature,
and their final cause the most obscure. Bless
me, what a letter ! I am almost ashamed to
send it — unless I might dare to say with St.
Augustine, Ep. 72, a tedious length: 'sed non
apud te, cui nulla est pagina gratia 1 quam quae
me loquaciorem apportat tibi/ — I remain, my
honoured friends, with grateful and affectionate
esteem, yours ever and truly,

S. T. Coleridge.

1 gratior ?

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[OCT

Mont Blanc, the Summit of the Vale of
Chamouny, an Hour before Sunrise — a
Hymn.

[As sent to Sir George Beaumont. ]

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course ? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful top, O Chamouny !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, dread mountain
form !

Risest from out thy silent sea of pines,
How silently ! Around thee, and above,
Deep is the sky and black ! transpicuous, blacky
An ebon mass ! Methinks thou piercest it
As with a wedge !

But when I look again,
It is thy own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity !

0 dread and silent form ! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to my bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought — entranced in

prayer,

1 worshippd the Invisible alone.

COLERIDGE.

Yet thou, meantime, wast working on my soul,
Even like some deep enchanting melody.
So sweet, we know not we are list'ning to it.
Now I awake ! and with a busier mind
And active will self-conscious, offer now,
Not, as before, involuntary prayer
And passive adoration !

Hand and voice,
Awake, awake ! And thou, my heart, awake !
Green fields and icy cliffs, all join my hymn !
And thou, thou silent mountain, lone and bare !
O struggling with the darkness all the night,1
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink :
Companion of the morning star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald — wake, oh wake, and utter praise !
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ?
Who fiird thy countenance with rosy light ?
Who made thee father of perpetual streams ?

And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad !
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death,
From darkness let you loose and icy dens,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shatter d, and the same for ever ?

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[OCT.

Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy.

Eternal thunder, and unceasing foam ?

And who commanded [and the silence came],

Here shall your billows stiffen and have rest ?

Ye ice falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines steeply slope,2
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge,
Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts !
Who made you glorious, as the gates of heaven,
Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who with lovely
flowers 3

Of living blue spread garlands at your feet ?
Ye azure flowers, that skirt the eternal frost !
Ye wild-goats bounding by the eagle's nest !
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm !
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds f
Ye signs and wonders of the element —
Utter forth, God ! and fill the hills with praise !

And thou, thou silent mountain, lone and bare !
Whom as I lift again my head, bow'd low
In adoration, I again behold !

COLERIDGE.

And from thy summit upward to thy base
Sweep slowly with dim eyes suffused with tears !
Rise, mighty form ! even as thou seemst to rise !
Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth !
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven.
Great Hierarch ! tell thou the silent stars,
Tell the blue sky, and tell the rising sun,
Earth with her thousand voices calls on God !

S. T. Coleridge.

1 I had written a much finer line when Sea' Fell was in my
thoughts, viz. —

O blacker than the darkness all the night,
And visited, etc.

2 A bad line ; but I hope to be able to alter it.

3 The Gentiana major grows in large companies a stride's
distance from the foot of several of the glaciers. Its blue
flower, the colour of Hope : is it not a pretty emblem of Hope
creeping onward even to the edge of the grave, to the very
verge of utter desolation ?

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[OCT.

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, IMh October 1803.

Dear Sir George, — If any person were to be
nformed of the particulars of your kindness to
me; — if it wrere described to him in all its deli-
cacy and nobleness, — and he should afterwards
be told that I suffered eight weeks to elapse
without writing to you one word of thanks or
acknowledgment, he would deem it a thing
absolutely impossible. It is nevertheless true.
This is, in fact, the first time that I have taken
up a pen, not for writing letters, but on any
account whatsoever, except once, since Mr. Cole-
ridge showed me the writings of the Apple-
thwaite Estate, and told me the little history of
what you had done for me, the motives, etc.
I need not say that it gave me the most heart-
felt pleasure, not for my own sake chiefly,
though in that point of view it might well be

WORDSWORTH.

most highly interesting to me, but as an act
which, considered in all its relations as to matter
and manner, it would not be too much to say,
did honour to human nature ; at least, I felt it
as such, and it overpowered me.

Owing to a set of painful and uneasy sensa-
tions which I have, more or less, at all times
about my chest — from a disease which chiefly
affects my nerves and digestive organs — and
which makes my aversion from writing little less
than madness, I deferred writing to you, being
at first made still more uncomfortable by travel-
ling, and loathing to do violence to myself, in
what ought to be an act of pure pleasure and
enjoyment, viz., the expression of my deep sense
of your goodness. This feeling was, indeed, so
strong in me, as to make me look upon the act
of writing to you, not as the work of a moment,
but as a business with something little less than
awful in it, a task, a duty, a thing not to be
done but in my best, my purest, and my happiest
moments. Many of these I had, but then I had
not my pen and ink and my paper before me,
my conveniences, ' my appliances and means to
boot ' ; all which, the moment that I thought of
them, seemed to disturb and impair the sanctity

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[OCT.

of my pleasure. I contented myself with think-
ing over my complacent feelings, and breathing
forth solitary gratulations and thanksgivings,
which I did in many a sweet and many a wild
place, during my late Tour. In this shape, pro-
crastination became irresistible to me ; at last I
said, I will write at home from my own fireside,
when I shall be at ease and in comfort. I have
now been more than a fortnight at home, but
the uneasiness in my chest has made me beat off
the time when the pen was to be taken up. I
do not know from what cause it is, but during
the last three years I have never had a pen in
my hand for five minutes, before my whole frame
becomes one bundle of uneasiness ; a perspiration
starts out all over me, and my chest is oppressed
n a manner which I cannot describe. This is a
sad weakness ; for I am sure, though it is chiefly
owing to the state of my body, that by exertion
of mind I might in part control it. So, however,
it is ; and I mention it, because I am sure when
you are made acquainted with the circumstances,
though the extent to which it exists nobody can
well conceive, you will look leniently upon my
silence, and rather pity than blame me ; though
I must still continue to reproach myself, as I

WORDSWORTH.

have done bitterly every day for these last eight
weeks. One thing in particular has given me
great uneasiness : it is, lest in the extreme deli-
cacy of your mind, which is well known to me,
you for a moment may have been perplexed by a
single apprehension that there might be any
error, anything which I might misconceive, in
your kindness to me. When I think of the pos-
sibility of this, I am vexed beyond measure that
I had not resolution to write immediately. But
I hope that these fears are all groundless, and
that you have (as I know your nature will lead
you to do) suspended your judgment upon my
silence; blaming me indeed, but in that qualified
way in which a good man blames what he believes
will be found an act of venial infirmity, when it
is fully explained. But I have troubled you far
too much with this. Such I am however, and
deeply I regret that I am such. I shall conclude
with solemnly assuring you, late as it is, that
nothing can wear out of my heart, as long as
my faculties remain, the deep feeling which
I have of your delicate and noble conduct
towards me.

It is now high time to speak of the estate,
c

COLEORTON LETTERS.

and what is to be done with it. It is a most
delightful situation, and few things would give
me greater pleasure than to realise the plan
which you had in view for me, of building a
house there. But I am afraid, I am sorry to say,
that the chances are very much against this,
partly on account of the state of my own affairs,
and still more from the improbability of Mr. Cole-
ridge's continuing in the country. The writings
are at present in my possession, and what I should
wish is, that I might be considered at present as
steward of the land, with liberty to lay out the
rent in planting, or any other improvement which
might be thought advisable, with a view to
building upon it. And if it should be out of my
power to pitch my own tent there, I would then
request that you would give me leave to restore
the property to your own hands ; in order that
you might have the opportunity of again pre-
senting it to some worthy person, who might be
so fortunate as to be able to make that pleasant
use of it, which it was your wish that I should
have done.

Mr. Coleridge informed me, that immediately
after you left Keswick, he had, as I requested,
returned you thanks for those two elegant draw-

WORDSWORTH.

ings, which you were so good as to leave for me.
The present is valuable in itself, and I consider
it as a high honour conferred on me. How often
did we wish for five minutes' command of your
pencil while we were in Scotland ! or rather that
you had been with us. Sometimes I am sure
you would have been highly delighted. In one
thing Scotland is superior to every country I
have travelled in ; I mean the graceful beauty of
the dresses and figures. There is a tone of
imagination about them beyond anything I have
seen elsewhere.

Mr. Coleridge, I understand, has written to
you several times lately ; so of course he will
have told you when and why he left us. I am
glad he did, as I am sure the solitary part of his
tour did him much the most service. He is
still unwell, though wonderfully strong. He is
attempting to bring on a fit of the gout, which
he is sure will relieve him greatly. I was at
Keswick last Sunday, and saw both him and Mr.
Southey, whom I liked very much. Coleridge
looks better, I think, than when you saw him ;
and is, I also think, upon the whole, much better.
Lady Beaumont will be pleased to hear that our
carriage, though it did not suit Mr. Coleridge,

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[OCT.

(the noise of it being particularly unpleasant to
him) answered wonderfully well for my sister
and me, and that the whole tour far surpassed
our most sanguine expectations.

They are sadly remiss at Keswick in putting
themselves to trouble in defence of the country ;
they came forward very cheerfully some time
ago, but were so thwarted by the orders and
counter-orders of the Ministry and their servants,
that they have thrown up the whole in disgust.
At Grasmere, we have turned out almost to a
man. We are to go to Ambleside on Sunday to
be mustered, and put on, for the first time, our
military apparel. — I remain, dear Sir George,
with the most affectionate and respectful regard
for you and Lady Beaumont, yours sincerely,

W. Wordsworth.

My sister will transcribe three sonnets,1 which
I do not send you from any notion I have of
their merit, but merely because they are the only
verses I have written since I had the pleasure of
seeing you and Lady Beaumont. At the sight
of Kilchurn Castle, an ancient residence of the
Breadalbanes, upon an island in Loch Awe, I
felt a real poetical impulse : but I did not pro-

WORDSWORTH.

ceed. I began a poem (apostrophising the castle)
thus :

Child of loud-throated war ! the mountain stream
Roars in thy hearing ; but thy hour of rest
Is come, and thou art silent in thine age ;

but I stopped.

1 Written at Neidpath (near Peebles), a mansion of the Duke
of Queensberry : 1 Now as I live, I pity that great Lord,' etc.
To the Men of Kent: 4 Vanguard of Liberty, ye Men of Kent ! '
Anticipation: 4 Shout, for a mighty victory is won ! ' etc. If
you think, either you or Lady Beaumont, that these two last
sonnets are worth publication, would you have the goodness
to circulate them in any way you like ?

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JAN.

Coleridge to Sir George Beaumont.

No. 16 Abingdon Street, Westminster,
Jan. 30th, 1804.

Dear Sir George,, — I could not endure to write
to you, if in the permitting your letters to re-
main unanswered^ I could attribute to myself
any considerable portion of blame. Some divines
have held that, with God,, to create and to think
are one and the same act. If to compose letters,
and to write them, had been the same thing
to me, you and dear Lady Beaumont would
have each received a volume. Indeed, I scarcely
dare affront my own nature by a direct apology,
as I am conscious that for the last three months
I have thought more of you, and relatively to
you, than of any other person in the world,
with the exception of Mr. T. Wedgwood, the
state of whose health and spirits has had, per-
haps, some share in my own most miserable
condition of body. I am heart-sick and almost
stomach-sick of speaking, writing, and thinking

COLEHIDGE.

about myself. It is enough that I have been
very, very ill, and have no chance of any suc-
cession of healthy days while I remain in this
climate. Three physicians of eminence whom
I have consulted separately, and two of whom
are personally attached to me, have given it as
their opinion, that a single winter passed in a
warm, even, and genial climate, will entirely
restore me, not perhaps to robust health, but to
that which alone I pray for, the power of exert-
ing perseverantly and continuously those faculties
and acquirements which the Almighty has in-
trusted to my keeping. That this opinion is
just, I have a persuasion strong as the life
within me ; for a single hour of dry frosty
weather, or of dry air in summer heat, Jills me
with elastic health, so that no one sensation
reminds me that I have been, or am again to
be, ill and bedridden. One fact will explain
the nature of my complaint. About Friday
midnight the weather changed to wind and
rain. It affected me in my sleep, and I awoke
with a slight shock in my stomach. All Satur-
day morning, the bad weather continuing, I was
unable to breathe, except as one in an asthma
breathes, and unable to sit at the writing-desk

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JAN.

for three minutes together. About one o'clock
I received a letter of tremendous gloom from
T. Wedgwood. As usual, I read it without
much conscious emotion ; and somebody com-
ing in, I talked on general subjects with ease,
and had no suspicion that the letter had gotten
into me. I went out to dinner and had not
tasted three morsels, before a perspiration broke
out upon me like a tropical rain, and in about
an hour I was quite well. In short, any harass-
ing thought instantly affects my stomach, and
any ungenial action upon the skin does the
same ; and when these unite, the effect is a
fearful one. Oftentimes when I have heard
of or witnessed any calamity, my whole frame
has gone crash, as it were, at the very moment
that I have been accusing myself of insensi-
bility. My consciousness seems a faculty exclu-
sively devoted to love and pleasure and general
thought ; and grief and trouble link themselves
on to those parts of my being, which, in the
blood and other secretions, are no parts of my
knowledge.

I left home on the 20th of December, mean-
ing to spend one day at Grasmere, and thence
to Kendal. At Grasmere I was taken ill, and

COLERIDGE.

literally imprisoned for more than a month.
At length, however, I have reached London,
with the resolution of going either to Madeira,
or to Catania in Sicily, if I can by any proper
way arrange the means of so doing, without
injury or distress to Mrs. Coleridge ; and of
this I have now little doubt. Wordsworth,
after an obstinate refusal on my part for more
than four months, has at length, I may almost
say, forced me to accept the loan of ,£100 ;
and to-morrow, after an interview with some
merchants, from whom I am to receive all
sort of distinct information, I write to my
brothers, and request another <£100, which they
are well able to spare, without even feeling
the loss — even if I should be deluded in my
expectations of health, and unable to repay
the sums — and this is fully equal to all my
want both for the voyage thither and back,
my expenses there for a year, and the leaving
Mrs. C. perfectly clear of all little debts, etc.,
with my whole annuity. Such are my plans.
That I write thus to you, you know enough of
me, dear Sir George, to consider as a certain
proof how much and with what affectionate
esteem my heart is attached to you. I antici-

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JAN.

pate exceeding comfort in becoming a regular
correspondent ; and henceforward you may rely
on me that I shall be so, if I find and feel that
my letters will be that comfort and pleasure to
you which yours have been and ever will be to
me. But as I cannot endure to make up letters of
mere thoughts and generalisations, without hear-
ing anything directly and absolutely of and
concerning you and dear Lady Beaumont, and
without telling you anything of my own self,
however near my heart, I have prevailed on
myself to write you what I am doing and how
my affairs are situated. Now that all is settled,
and I no longer risk that from your overflowing
kindness which would at once put a stop to
my ever writing minutely of myself hereafter ;
whereas it is among my wishes to write my
whole life to you, including ... in a series of
letters. — With grateful love and . . . esteem,
my honoured friends, I remain, yours . . .

S. T. Coleridge.

P.S. — Of my poetry, etc., I write you, with-
out fail, the day after to-morrow. I stay in
these rooms (an absent acquaintance's lodgings)
for eight or nine days.

COLERIDGE.

Coleridge to Sir George Beaumont.

Wednesday, Feb. 1st, 1804.

Dear Sir George, — I thank you for your kind-
ness, and I hope, with no everyday thanks ;
yet, if I know my own nature, twenty times an
hundred pound would not be as precious to me,
as that (not unaffectionate) esteem for me on
your part, which I flatter myself was the true
parent of your kindness. That I do not dare
avail myself of your offer becomes therefore a
mere trifle ; for the thing itself is but what an
expressive motion of the hand is to a generous
thought — the symbol and the ornament, but not
the essence. Thus much then in addition to
my statement of my case. Whatever affects my
stomach diseases me ; and my stomach is affected
either immediately, by disagreeing food, or
distressing thoughts, which make all food dis-
agree with me ; or indirectly, by any ungenial
action upon the skin, that terra incognita to
physician and metaphysician. Now, very cold
dry weather, or very hot dry weather, are alike

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[FEB.

benignant to me ; it is damp, rain, storm, thaw,
and thaw-winds — in short, whatever makes the
air heavy — that unfailingly deprive me of all
power to be useful, excepting as far as the
contemplation of my own being, and the
exercise by increase of patience are useful :
which assuredly they are, regarded as causae
causarum. This winter, therefore, has been
especially unfavourable to me, and it is seldom
that even in summer we have a month together
of light dry weather — least of all at Bath, that
sunless vapoury basin among the hills. I have
now had the advice of four medical men, and the
opinions of all the four coincide with the three-
years-old persuasion of my own mind, namely,
that I must hope for a cure in such medicines
only as can act continuously and regularly for
many months together. Of these there are
three — regulated diet, tranquillity, and an even
and dry climate. The old Schola Salernitana
with a little alteration expresses the thing
exactly, and speaks to me oracularly :

Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiant

Haec tria ; mens aequa, aer aequus, et aequa diaeta.

1 persist, therefore, in going to Sicily, where I
hope to find all three. I was hardly used from

COLERIDGE.

infancy to boyhood, and from boyhood to youth
most, most cruelly, yet c the joy within me/
which is indeed my own life and my very self,
was creating me anew to the first purpose
of nature, when other and deeper distress
supervened, which many have guessed, but
Wordsworth alone knows to the full extent
of the calamity ; and yet even this I shall master
if it please the Almighty to continue in me the
thoughts that have been my guides, guardians,
and comforters for the last five months.

I look back with honest pride on the latter
months of my life, when I review what I have
accomplished, under what sufferings. I have now
completed my materials (and three months will
enable me to send them to the press) for a work,
the contents of which you will conjecture from
the title : ' Consolations and Comforts from the
Exercise and right Application of the Reason,
the Imagination, and the Moral Feelings/ The
f Consolations ' are addressed to all in adversity,
sickness, or distress of mind : the first part
entirely practical ; the second, in which I con-
sider distress of mind from gloomy speculations,
will, of course, be speculative, and will contain a
new theodicee, and what will perhaps appear to

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[FEB.

many a new basis of morals. The ' Comforts '
are addressed to the happy and prosperous,
attempting to open to them new, and perhaps
better, at all events more numerous and more
various, sources of enjoyment. Of this work
every page has, and will, come from my heart's
heart ; and I may venture, dear and honoured
friends, to say to you, without dreading from
you the imputation of vanity, that what I have
written is to my own mind a pure strain of music.
While I am writing this work I give one week
in the four to poetry ; and when I have finished
it I shall religiously divide my time. One
fortnight in each month I shall then devote to
poetry, and the other fortnight to Essays (seven in
number, and of which the third will be the first
published). The first, on the Genius and Writings
of Chaucer. (2) The same, on Spenser. (3)
Shakespeare. (4) An Essay, Biographical and
Critical, on Milton. (5) An episodical Essay on
the supposed Genius, Style, Critical Powers, and
Morals of Dr. S. Johnson. (6) On Dryden and
Pope. (7) On the Sources of Poetic Pleasure —
in which, without using the words bad or good,
I simply endeavour to detect the causes and
sources of the pleasures, which different styles,

COLERIDGE.

fc7

etc., have given in different ages, and then de-
termining their comparative worth, permanency,
and compatibility with the nobler parts of our
nature, to establish, in the utmost depths to which
I can delve, the characteristics of good and bad
poetry and the intimate connection of taste
and morals. In explaining what I shall do with
Shakespeare, I explain the nature of the other
five. Each scene of each play I read as if it
were the whole of Shakespeare's works — the
sole thing extant. I ask myself what are the
characteristics, the diction, the cadences, and
metre, the character, the passion, the moral or
metaphysical inherencies and fitness for theatric
effect, and in what sort of theatres. All these I
write down with great care and precision of
thought and language (and when I have gone
through the whole, I then shall collect my papers,
and observe how often such and such expressions
recur), and thus shall not only knowT what the
characteristics of Shakespeare's plays are, but
likewise what proportion they bear to each other.
Then, not carelessly, though of course with far
less care, I shall read through the old plays, just
before Shakespeare's time, Sir Philip Sidney's
Arcadia, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher,

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[FEB.

and Massinger in the same way ; so as to see,
and to be able to prove, what of Shakespeare
belonged to his age, and was common to all the
first-rate men of that true saeculum aureum of
English poetry, and what is his own, and his only.
Thus I shall both exhibit the characteristics of
the plays and of the mind of Shakespeare,
and a philosophical analysis and justification of
almost every character, at greater or less length,
in the spirit of that analysis of the character of
Hamlet, with which you were much pleased, and
by being so, I solemnly assure, gave me heart
and hope, and did me much good. For much as
I loathe flattery from the bottom of my very
.stomach, and much as I wriggle under the burthen
and discomfort of the praise of people, for whose
heads, hearts, and specific competence I have
small respect, yet I own myself no self-subsisting
mind. I know, I feel, that I am weak, apt to
faint away, inwardly self-deserted, and bereft of
the confidence in my own powers ; and that the
approbation and sympathy of good and intelligent
men is my sea-breeze, without which I should
languish from morn to evening, — a very trade-
wind to me, in which my bark drives on regularly
and lightly.

COLERIDGE.

An author of some celebrity, and more noto-
riety, was with me all yesterday, and inflicted
on me five acts of a tragedy, and all to-day, with
aching spirit, I am to be employed in pencil-
marking its thousand flatnesses and incongruities
of diction and sentiment, in addition to a
conversation of two hours yesterday, in which
I persuaded him to many essential alterations ;
and yet, do all I can, I could as easily pray
Caligula or (within a month after his arrival in
England) Buonaparte out of purgatory as help
this poor devil of a tragedy out of absolute
damnation. It will die the death of a red-hot
poker in water — all one hiss. But what can a
decently good-natured man say to a brother bard,
who tells you that it is of importance to his
happiness and pecuniary circumstances ? But
for this you would have received a large sheetful
of verses in a frank ; and will do so in the course
of a few days, believe me, in no inconsiderable
degree, for the pleasure and relief which I my-
self shall have in the occupation. Since the last
sentence I have been interrupted two hours : —
(1) by General Hastings ; (2) by Godwin ; (3) by
the poet Campbell, who stayed a most inordi-
nate time ; this being the first time I have ever

50 COLEORTON LETTERS. [FEB,

conversed with him. And now I must conclude
half a sheet sooner than I expected. Only this
I must say — it being indeed one half of my
purpose when I began the letter, — the more
I have thought of the translations from the
drawings, the more and more deeply am I per-
suaded of the excellence of the idea ; and no
sooner am I anywhere settled than I shall dedi-
cate a certain portion of my time to the realising
about twenty, — which I calculate will be a small
volume, — of thirteen of which I have already
the leading idea, that is to say, whether I
mean it as a moral-descriptive poem, whether
an inscription, whether a tale. I had taken
notes of twenty-one drawings from the blue-book,
of which I retain a floating and general recollection
of all, but an accurate and detailed imagery only
of three ; and by no industry of search could I
find the paper of notes, which, from some over-
care or other, I had mislaid. I propose, therefore,
if it should be perfectly convenient to you, to
pay you a visit for two or three days at Dunmow.
You will, I am sure, be so good as not to suffer
me to come, if it be in the least degree incon-
venient ; but you will give me a few lines,
and if it be convenient, you will tell me by

COLERIDGE.

what coaclr, to what place, I get the nearest to
you.

Believe me, dear Sir George and dear Lady
Beaumont, I remain, with grateful respect and
affection, your truly obliged friend,

S. T. Coleridge.

No. 16 Abingdon Street, Westminster.

P.S. — I seem to feel uncomfortable in sending-
off this letter, it is so wholly and exclusively
all about / myself, I ; but really, in the present
moment, I am of some anxiety to my own self,
and your kindness, dear Sir George, forced me,
at least reduced me, into it.

C0LEORT0N LETTERS.

[march

Coleridge to Lady Beaumont.

Monday afternoon, March 5, 1804.

Dear Madam, — Within the last hour four
letters at once have been brought to me from
Mr. Lamb's, who has been ill, and prevented
by illness from attending at the India House ;
and I too, alas ! have been ill and in a sort of
stupor, and not knowing of Lamb's illness took
it for granted that there were no letters for me.
These four all from Dun mow ! I was so agitated
at the sight that I was incapable of opening
either for nearly three-quarters of an hour, and
there still remains one from you unopened, and
this I literally am as much afraid of as a child of
a dark room ; at least, I must first assure your
Ladyship and Sir George that I will send the
acid with the directions by to-morrow's coach. I
have been as yet able to gain no certain intel-
ligence respecting the vessel for Malta ; and
think it unlikely that it will sail so soon as the
10th, for the King's ship is not yet fixed on for
their convoy. As to my Christabel, and some

COLERIDGE.

other verses which are preparing for you, I am
highly gratified that they are in your possession.
The thought that you and Sir George will at
times talk of the poem by your fireside, or in
your summer evening walks, and sometimes wish
for its conclusion, will be one and a strong
inducement to me to finish it. I trust I need
not say to your Ladyship that in a letter to
Dunmow, least of all correspondents should I
dare to let my words outstrip my weighed mean-
ing, my inmost feeling.

Now, I think, I have gathered courage to
open the letter. It is a kind letter from Sir
George. I will not fail to call on Mr. Knight
to-morrow before noon. I have been advised by
a very eminent physician to try a very small
drop of nitric acid (that is, very 'pure aquafortis)
placed on the tumour by the point of a fine pen,
and to continue this on the same place for some
weeks, twice a day. He says he cannot posi-
tively answer for its success, as he has only had
occasion to advise it in two instances ; but that
in both of these its success was complete, and if
it should answer equally well with me, it would
be a very valuable discovery, as it leaves no scar,
and spares all the danger that a surgical lancet

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[march

might occasion in places near or close upon the

glands, especially where there is in the

constitution.

* * * * #

Henceforward I shall be sure to receive my
letters regularly.

Davy lectures to-night, and I cannot see him
till to-morrow.

[Signature, etc., cut out.]

COLERIDGE.

Coleridge to Sir George Beaumont.

Thursday, ^ past 11, March 8th, 1804.

Dear Sir George, — I called on Mr. Knight on
Tuesday noon. He was engaged with a gentle-
man in looking over his collection. By the by,
whether it were that the sight of so many
bronzes all at once infected my eye, as by long
looking at the setting sun all objects become
purple, or whether there really be a likeness,
Mr. Knight's own face represented to my fancy
that of a living bronze. It is the hardest counten-
ance I ever beheld in a man of rank and letters ;
but the myrtle, no less than the yew-tree, starts
up from the fissures of the crag, and the vine that
rejoices the hearts of gods and men spreads its
tendrils and ripens its clusters on the naked
rock. In the following moment the likeness of
his face to that mask-portrait of Wordsworth at
Keswick struck me with greater force ; and, till
I had left the house, I did not recollect that
Lady Beaumont had observed the same. I
stayed not above three or four minutes ; he

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[march

appointed this day noon for my second call,
when he is to give me whatever information and
whatever assistance may be in his power. Briefly,
in words he was extremely civil, and this I
regarded with complacency as the payment of a
debt of attention to your name and recommenda-
tion. In tones, looks, and manners he was em-
barrassing, and this I was willing to consider as
the effect of my own unbeUerophontic countenance
and mien. No doubt, I like a man the better
for not being unfavourably impressed by my first
appearance, but I never think the worse of him
for the contrary. However, I have breakfasted
at Mr. Greenough's, some forty or fifty doors
from Mr. Knight's, and in a few minutes shall
fulfil my engagement. ... In the same parcel
I include Daniel's Poems, with the eminent
passages of the Hymen's Triumph (for which
alone I have sent them) marked, and some trifles
of my own. But now I must wait on Mr. Knight
— which cwait on ' is a vile un-English phrase —
and leave the letter open, that I may finish it
with the result.

\ after one. — I have left Mr. Knight, time
enough, I hope, for the coach. Mr. Knight was

COLERIDGE.

extremely obliging, and no doubt, often seen,
would improve into a friendly man. He showed
me his views of Sicily, chiefly by Hackart, from
which I learnt, what I knew before, that I shall
see nothing in Sicily of half the beauty of Cum-
berland, and not a hundredth part of the number
of the grand and the impressive. My sole object
is health, I never even think of anything else,
even as an addamus lucro. Mr. K. will procure
me a letter from Lady Hamilton to the manager
of Lord Nelson's Sicilian domains, and showed
me all his bronzes. I was highly delighted, and
indeed much instructed. One figure, which you
have not seen, though imperfect, absolutely
enamoured me. I have seldom in my life ex-
perienced such a burst of pleasurable sense of
beauty. It represents a Venus or Venus-like
figure, as from the bath, on one leg, putting on
her sandal on the upraised leg. I am not afraid
of the charge of using violent language when I
say you will be enchanted. On Saturday I write
without fail. To-day I expect to meet and dine
with Mr. Sotheby at Davy's. — With respectful
remembrances to your mother, I am, my dear
Sir George, most gratefully and respectfully
yours, S. T. Coleridge.

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[march

Coleridge to Sir George Beaumont.

Friday night, April 6th, 1804,

Spithead, on board the Speedwell.

My dear Sir George, — What I feel deeply,
why should I fear to say plainly ? and what is
there worthy to accompany the reward of a quiet
conscience, if it be not the approbation and
sympathy of those whom we honestly esteem ?
It is perhaps no compliment to the world we live
in that I hesitated to say that your anxiety for
my health would be a strong inducement to me
to take care of it. I am often afraid of giving
way to my best feelings, lest they should appear
as mere heat of manner, an overboiling, that
puts out the miserable pittance of fire that made
it boil. But different constitutions breed different
modes of manifestation, and if there are Hatfields
in abundance, there is likewise no lack of Iagos.
Virtue can exhibit itself in no shape which vice
will not learn to counterfeit ; and you and I, my
honoured friend, will judge by actions, as far as
they go, and, where they fail us, by a tact, that

1804] COLERIDGE. 5,9

makes us feel difference in things, which we shall
be puzzled to explain by words.

I was hurried off this morning to my vessel,
but the wind has again westered ; but our Com-
modore, Captain H. W. Baynton, of the Leviathan
(I wonder whether Mr. or Captain Sotheby knows
him ?), is to sail with the first puff that wins a
point and a half on the hither side of impossi-
bility. We hope to go to-morrow ; we may be
here this day fortnight ; it is hard to say which
is the more probable. I am better than I was.
My spirits are low ; and I suffer too often sink-
ings and misgivings, alienations from the spirit
of hope, strange withdrawings out of the life that
manifests itself by existence, morbid yearnings
condemned by me, almost despised, and yet per-
haps at times almost cherished, to concentre my
being into stoniness, or to be diffused as among
the winds, and lose all individual existence. But
all this I well know is a symptom of bodily
disease, and no part of sentiment or intellect,
closely connected with the excessively irritable
state of my stomach and the viscera, and beyond
doubt greatly exasperated by the abruptness and
suddenness of my late transitions from one state
to another. Mercy on me ! from Grasmere and

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[ APRIL

the Wordsworths to London, to drinkings, talk-
ings, discussings, vain and noisy exhibitions,
thence another Grasmere (quite another, and yet
essentially the same) at Dunmow, again to Lon-
don, and again a few happy days with you and
Lady Beaumont, and whither then ? To Ports-
mouth, among men, kind-hearted indeed, and
absolutely eager to serve me, and to express a
liking to me that from such men quite astonished
me ; but among loose livers and loose talkers, with
oaths and dirt rattling about my ears like grape-
shot, and whistling by me like so many perforated
bullets. For at Portsmouth all are mock tars ;
the whole town is one huge man-of-war of brick
and mortar. Positively this night, — that star so
very bright over the mast of a noble vessel, and
the sound of the water breaking against the ship's
side, — it seems quite a home to me. Our captain
is a mild good sort of man, a Scotchman, prudent,
well-meaning, unprofessing, and plain as the best
Englishman, and with every appearance of a good
sailor. There are two passengers besides me ;
the one, a half-pay lieutenant turned small
merchant, who, with a bright eye over a yellow
purple face, — that betrays to me that half his liver
is gone or going, — has said four or five times aloud

COLERIDGE.

that good wine never did any man any harm; and
an unconscientiously fat woman, who would have
wanted elbow-room on Salisbury Plain, a body
that might have been, in a less spendthrift mood
of Nature, sliced into a company, and a reasonable
slice allotted her as corporal ! I think I never
saw so large a woman, such a monopolist, patentee
abstract of superfluous flesh. Enough of her, in a
double sense of the phrase.

My direction continues to be simply at Mr. J.
C. Motley's, Portsmouth. Mr. Motley will have
them forwarded to me with more regularity than
by the post, and free of expense. The man has
been really kind to me ; and I hope I have done
him some good in the best sense of the word.
I shall lose no opportunity to write to you ; and
Lady Beaumont will do me the justice to believe
that I have never forgotten her wish respecting
the epitaph. I have waited for the time. I will
suppose it possible that I may yet again write to
you before I lose sight of my native shores, for
even in a letter it is painful to me to bid you and
your dear lady a last farewell. Nay ! that, I
trust, never can be the case, never, never ! if I
and you, honoured friends, are what I believe we
are, and continue to be so, then death itself will

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[APRIL

be only a voyage, a voyage not f rom, but to our
native country and fervently I bless and pray
for you, dear Sir G. and dear Lady Beaumont. —
Your grateful and most affectionate friend,

S. T. Coleridge.

1 Compare the side-note to The Ancient Mariner, Part iv.
st. 10 : 'In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards
the journeying moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still
move onward ; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them,
and is their appointed rest, and their native country, and
their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as
lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent
joy at their arrival.' — Ed.

WORDSWORTH.

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, July 20, 1804.
Dear Sir George, — Lady Beaumont in a letter
to my sister told her some time ago that it was
your intention to have written to me, but know-
ing my aversion to letter-writing you were
unwilling to impose upon me the trouble of
answering. I am much obliged to you for the
honour you intended me, and deeply sensible of
your delicacy. If a man were what he ought to
be, with such feelings and such motives as I
have, it would be as easy for him to write to Sir
George Beaumont as to take his food when he
was hungry, or his repose when he was weary.
But we suffer bad habits to grow upon us, and
that has been the case with me, as you have had
reason to find and forgive already. I cannot
quit the subject without regretting that any
weakness of mine should have prevented my
hearing from you, which would always give me
great delight ; and though I cannot presume to
say that I should be a punctual correspondent, I

64 COLEORTON LETTERS. [j^LY

am sure I should not be insensible of your kind-
ness^ but should also do my best to deserve it.

A few days ago I received from Mr. Southey
your very acceptable present of Sir Joshua Rey-
nolds's Works, which, with the Life, I have
nearly read through. Several of the Discourses
I had read before, though never regularly
together: they have very much added to the
high opinion which I before entertained of Sir
Joshua Reynolds. Of a great part of them,
never having had an opportunity of studying any
pictures whatsoever, I can be but a very inade-
quate judge ; but of such parts of the Discourses
as relate to general philosophy, I may be entitled
to speak with more confidence ; and it gives me
great pleasure to say to you, knowing your great
regard for Sir Joshua, that they appear to me
highly honourable to him. The sound judgment
universally displayed in these Discourses is truly
admirable, — I mean the deep conviction of the
necessity of unwearied labour and diligence, the
reverence for the great men of his art, and the
comprehensive and unexclusive character of his
taste. Is it not a pity, Sir George, that a man
with such a high sense of the dignity of his art,
and with such industry, should not have given

WORDSWORTH.

more of his time to the nobler departments of

painting ? I do not say this so much on account

of what the world would have gained by the

superior excellence and interest of his pictures,

though doubtless that would have been very

considerable, but for the sake of example. It is

such an animating sight to see a man of genius,

regardless of temporary gains, whether of money

or praise, fixing his attention solely upon what

is intrinsically interesting and permanent, and

finding his happiness in an entire devotion of

himself to such pursuits as shall most ennoble

human nature. We have not yet seen enough

of this in modern times ; and never was there a

period in society when such examples were likely

to do more good than at present. The industry

and love of truth which distinguish Sir Joshua's

mind are most admirable ; but he appears to me

to have lived too much for the age in which he

lived, and the people among whom he lived,

though this in an infinitely less degree than

his friend Burke, of whom Goldsmith said, with

such truth, long ago, that,

Born for the universe, he narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.

I should not have said thus much of Reynolds,

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JULY

which I have not said without pain, but because
I have so great a respect for his character, and
because he lived at a time when, being the first
Englishman distinguished for excellence in the
higher department of painting, he had the field
fairly open for him to have given an example,
upon which all eyes must needs have been fixed,
of a man preferring the cultivation and exertion
of his own powers in the highest possible degree
to any other object of regard. My writing is
growing quite illegible. I must therefore either
mend it, or throw down the pen.

How sorry we all are under this roof that we
cannot have the pleasure of seeing you and Lady
Beaumont down this summer ! The weather has
been most glorious, and the country, of course,
most delightful. Our own valley in particular
was last night, by the light of the full moon,
and in the perfect stillness of the lake, a scene
of loveliness and repose as affecting as was ever
beheld by the eye of man. We have had a day
and a half of Mr. Davy's company at Grasmere,
and no more : he seemed to leave us with great
regret, being post-haste on his way to Edin-
burgh. I went with him to Patterdale, on his
road to Penrith, where he would take coach.

WORDSWORTH.

We had a deal of talk about you and Lady
Beaumont. He was a letter in your debt, as I
found, and exceedingly sorry that he had not
been able to get over to see you, having been
engaged at Mr. Coke's sheep-shearing, which
had not left him time to cross from the Duke
of Bedford's to your place. We had a very
pleasant interview, though far too short. He
is a most interesting man, whose views are fixed
upon worthy objects.

That Loughrigg Tarn, beautiful pool of water
as it is, is a perpetual mortification to me when
I think that you and Lady Beaumont were so
near having a summer-nest there. This is often
talked over among us ; and we always end the
subject with a heigh-ho ! of regret. But I must
think of concluding. My sister thanks Lady
Beaumont for her last letter, and will write to
her in a few days ; but I must say to her myself
how happy I was to hear that her sister had
derived any consolation from Coleridge's poems
and mine. I must also add how much pleasure
it gives me that Lady Beaumont is so kindly, so
affectionately disposed to my dear and good
sister, and also to the other unknown parts of
my family. Could we but have Coleridge back

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JULY

among us again ! There is no happiness in this
life but in intellect and virtue. Those were
very pretty verses which Lady Beamount sent ;
and we were much obliged to her for them.

What shocking bad writing I have sent you !
I don't know how it is, but it seems as if I could
not write any better.

Farewell. — Believe me, with the sincerest love
and affection for you and Lady Beaumont, yours,

Wm. Wordsworth.

COLERIDGE.

Coleridge to Sir George and Lady Beaumont.

August 1, 1804, Malta.
My dear Friends, — Lady Beaumont once told
me that when she was young, as a means of
awakening devotional feelings, she often imaged
to herself a mountain, or sea-shore, or something
great in Nature. O be assured, dear Sir George
and dear Lady Beaumont, that affectionate and
grateful feelings never visit me of their own
accord, but they bring your remembrance along
with them ; and that I never in any mood think
of you but there commences a new going on in
my heart. But I have but a few minutes to
write to you. I must therefore make haste to
say that Major Adye goes through Sicily to
Naples, and from thence makes the best of his
way to Gibraltar ; and that he has in trust, and
will expedite by the first safe opportunity, a series
of letters to you, containing my few, very few,
adventures, and my topographical and political
information. Not knowing exactly where to
direct to you, I have addressed the outward
cover to D. Stuart, Esq., Courier Office, who will

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

take care of it till sent for. I shall go to Syra-
cuse, Catania, Etna, Messina, and perhaps to
Naples, with Major Adye and two other Gibral-
tar gentlemen, and, of course, shall add to my
packet the journal of my hasty tour. From
thence I shall return to Syracuse, and probably
spend six weeks there, thence back again to
Malta, and there winter. I am as comfortable
here as a man can be, and as happy as / can be,
absent from England, and from all that make
England so dear to me. I live at the Palace of
St. Antoni's, in the country, four miles from La
Vallette, and when in town in the Palace at La
Vallette. A parent could scarcely be kinder to
me than Sir A. Ball, the Governor. Great as
the heat has been on the thermometer, 85 to
87 degrees, yet there is always a free air here,
and I have never once felt the heat oppressive.
I take care not to expose myself, and take my
exercise from five to seven in the morning, and
not till after seven in the evening. The climate
to me appears heavenly, and the sirocco a mere
joke, compared with our close drizzly weather
in England. On the whole, my health is, I
hope, better. I am scarcely ever ill, and very
seldom am tormented with distressful dreams ;

COLERIDGE.

but though exceedingly careful and temperate,
my appetite is languid, my stomach faint, and I
have reason to know that I rather enjoy a
reprieve, in consequence of the absence of the
diseasing causes, than have acquired strength to
bear up against them. But I have only tried
the season of inclement heat, and have every-
thing to hope from late autumn, winter, and
early spring. Sir A. B. will send this letter
among his. Dear and honoured friends, daily
do I think of you, and often, often have I prayed
for you both. — Alike in Malta and in England, I
am, dear Sir George and dear Lady Beaumont,
with heartfelt respect, your grateful and most
devoted friend, S. T. Coleridge.

I arrived here, as you will have heard, on the
18th of May. Since then we have had three
showery forenoons, and this is deemed an un-
commonly wet summer. We have had an earth-
quake or two. I have received only one very
short letter from England, and that completely
unintelligible to me from allusions to others,
which evil chance has taken to the Fleet. The
disappointment was so great as make me seriously
ill for two days.

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, August 30 (?), 1804.

Dear Sir George,, — Wednesday last, Mrs. Cole-
ridge, as she may, perhaps, herself have informed
you or Lady Beaumont, received a letter from
Coleridge. I happened to be at Keswick when
it arrived ; and she has sent it over to us to-day.
I will transcribe the most material parts of it,
first assuring you, to remove anxiety on your
part, that the contents are, we think, upon the
whole, promising. He begins thus (date, June 5,
1804, Tuesday noon ; Dr. Stoddart's, Malta): —
cl landed, in more than usual health, in the
harbour of Valetta, about four o'clock, Friday
afternoon, April 18. Since then I have been
waiting, day after day, for the departure of Mr.
Laing, tutor of the only child of Sir A. Ball, our
civil governor/

* * * * » % *

Mrs. Wordsworth and Lady B/s little god-
daughter 1 are both doing very well. Had the
child been a boy, we should have persisted in

WORDSWORTH.

our right to avail ourselves of Lady Beaumont's
goodness in offering to stand sponsor for it. The
name of Dorothy, obsolete as it is now grown,
had been so long devoted in my own thoughts
to the first daughter that I might have, that 1
could not break this promise to myself — a pro-
mise in which my wife participated ; though the
name of Mary, to my ear the most musical and
truly English in sound we have, would have
otherwise been most welcome to me, including,
as it would, Lady Beaumont and its mother.
This last sentence, though in a letter to you,

Sir George^ is intended for Lady Beaumont.

* * * * *

When I ventured to express my regret at Sir
Joshua Reynolds giving so much of his time to
portrait-painting and to his friends, I did not
mean to recommend absolute solitude and seclu-
sion from the world, as an advantage to him or
anybody else. I think it a great evil ; and
indeed^ in the case of a painter, frequent inter-
course with the living world seems absolutely
necessary to keep the mind in health and vigour.
I spoke, in some respects, in compliment to Sir
Joshua Reynolds, feeling deeply, as I do, the
power of his genius, and loving passionately the

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

labours of genius in every way in which I am
capable of comprehending them. Mr. Malone,
in the account prefixed to the Discourses, tells
us that Sir Joshua generally passed the time
from eleven till four every day in portrait-paint-
ing. This it was that grieved me, as a sacrifice
of great things to little ones. It will give me
great pleasure to hear from you at your leisure.
I am anxious to know that you are satisfied with
the site and intended plan of your house. I
suppose no man ever built a house without find-
ing, when it was finished, that something in it
might have been better done. Internal architec-
ture seems to have arrived at great excellence
in England ; but, I don't know how it is, I
scarcely ever see the outside of a new house that
pleases me. But I must break off. — Believe me,
with best remembrances from my wife and sister
to yourself and Lady Beaumont, yours, with the
greatest respect and regard,

W. Wordsworth.

My poetical labours have been entirely sus-
pended during the last two months : I am most
anxious to return to them.

1 Dora Wordsworth, born August 16, 1804. — Ed.

WORDSWORTH.

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, September 8th.1

You will be glad to hear that I have been
busily employed lately. I wrote one book of
The Recluse, nearly 1000 lines, then had a rest.
Last week began again, and have written 300
more. I hope all tolerably well, and certainly
with good views.

My sister received Lady Beaumont's letter
from Mulgrave last night. She would have
written ere this, but knew not what to say
about Coleridge, waiting in hope that we might
have letters from him that would be more satis-
factory. I am glad Wilkie is with you. Pray

remember me to him.

* * * ■* * *

I have been at Whitby several times. Once
in particular I remember seeing a most extra-
ordinary effect from the pier, produced by the
bold and ragged shore in a misty and showery
day. The appearance was as of a set of huge

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[sept.

faces in profile, one behind the other, with noses
of prodigious prominence. The whole was very
fantastic, and yet grand.

* * * * *

1 No year is given, but it cannot be later than 1804. — Ed.

i8o4|

WORDSWORTH. 77

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, Dec. 2,5th, 1804.

My dear Sir George, — Long since ought I to
have thanked you for your last affectionate
letter; but I knew how indulgent you were,
and therefore fell, I won't say more easily, but
surely with far less pain to myself, into my old
trick of procrastination. I was deeply sensible
of your kindness in inviting me to Grosvenor
Square, and then felt and still feel a strong
inclination to avail myself of the opportunity
of cultivating your friendship and that of Lady
Beaumont, and of seeing a little of the world
at the same time. But as the wish is strong
there are also strong obstacles against it : first,
though I have lately been tolerably industrious,
I am far behind-hand with my appointed work ;
and next, my nervous system is so apt to be
deranged by going from home, that I am by no
means sure that I should not be so much of a
dependent invalid ... as to make it absolutely

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

improper for me to obtrude myself where neither
my exertions of mind or body could enable me
to be tolerable company. I say nothing of my
family, because a short absence would be abun-
dantly recompensed by the pleasure of a c sweet
return/ At all events, I must express my
sincere thanks for your kindness and the plea-
sure which I received from your letter, breath-
ing throughout such favourable dispositions, I
may say such earnest friendship, towards me.

I think we are completely agreed upon the
subject of Sir Joshua — that is, we both regret
that he did not devote more of his time to the
higher branches of the Art ; and further, I
think you join with me in lamenting, to a certain
degree at least, that he did not live more to
himself. I have since read the rest of his
Discourses, with which I have been greatly
pleased, and wish most heartily that I could
have an opportunity of seeing in your company
your own collection of pictures and some others
in town, Mr. Angerstein's for instance, to have
pointed out to me some of those finer and
peculiar beauties of painting, which I am afraid
I shall never have an occasion of becoming
sufficiently familiar with pictures to discover of

WORDSWORTH.

myself. There is not a day in my life when
I am at home in which that exquisite little
drawing of yours of Applethwaite does not
affect me with a sense of harmony and grace,
which I cannot describe. Mr. Edridge, an artist
whom you know, saw this drawing along with
a Mr. Duppa, another artist, who published
c Hints from Raphael and Michael Angelo ' ;
and they were both most enthusiastic in their
praise of it, to my great delight. By the by,
I thought Mr. Edridge a man of very mild and
pleasing manners, and as far as I could judge,
of delicate feelings, in the province of his Art.
Duppa is publishing a Life of Michael Angelo,
and I received from him a few days ago two
proof-sheets of an Appendix which contains the
poems of M. A., which I shall read, and trans-
late one or two of them, if I can do it with
decent success. I have peeped into the Sonnets,
and they do not appear unworthy of their great
author.

You will be pleased to hear that I have been
advancing with my work. I have written up-
wards of 2000 verses during the last ten weeks.
I do not know if you are exactly acquainted
with the plan of my poetical labour. It is two-

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

fold — first, a poem, to be called The Recluse ;
in which it will be my object to express in
verse my most interesting feelings concerning
man, nature, and society ; and next, a poem
(in which I am at present chiefly engaged) on
my earlier life, or the growth of my own mind,
taken up upon a large scale. This latter work
I expect to have finished before the month of
May; and then I purpose to fall with all my
might on the former, which is the chief object
upon which my thoughts have been fixed these
many years. Of this poem, that of The Pedlar,
which Coleridge read you, is part, and I may
have written of it altogether about 2000 lines.
It will consist, I hope, of about ten or twelve
thousand.

May we not hope for the pleasure of seeing
you and Lady Beaumont down here next sum-
mer ? I flatter myself that Coleridge will then
be returned, and though we would not on any
account that he should fix himself in this rainy
part of England, yet perhaps we may have the
happiness of meeting all together for a few
weeks. We have lately built in our little
rocky orchard a circular hut, lined with moss,
like a wren's nest, and coated on the outside

WORDSWORTH.

with heath, that stands most charmingly, with
several views from the different sides of it, of
the Lake, the Valley, and the Church — sadly
spoiled, however, lately by being white-washed.
The little retreat is most delightful, and I am
sure you and Lady Beaumont would be highly
pleased with it. Coleridge has never seen it.
What a happiness would it be to us to see him
there, and entertain you all next summer in our
homely way under its shady thatch. I will copy
a dwarf inscription which I wrote for it the
other day, before the building was entirely
finished, which indeed it is not yet.

No whimsy of the purse is here,
No pleasure-house forlorn ;
Use, comfort, do this roof endear ;
A tributary shed to cheer
The little cottage that is near,
To help it and adorn.

I hope the young Roscius, if he go on as he
has begun, will rescue the English theatre from
the infamy that has fallen upon it, and restore
the reign of good sense and nature. From what
you have seen, Sir George, do you think he could
manage a character of Shakespeare ? Neither
Selim nor Douglas requires much power ; but
even to perform them as he does, talents and

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

genius I should think must be necessary. I had
very little hope, I confess, thinking it very
natural that a theatre which had brought a dog
upon the stage as a principal performer would
catch at a wonder whatever shape it might
put on.

We have had no tidings of Coleridge these
several months. He spoke of papers which he
had sent by private hands, none of which we
have received. It must be most criminal neglect
somewhere, if the fever be suffered to enter
Malta. — Farewell, and believe me, my dear Sir
George, your affectionate and sincere friend,

W. Wordsworth.

WORDSWORTH.

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, May 1st, 1805.

My dear Sir George, — I have wished to write
to you every day this long time, but I have also
had another wish, which has interfered to prevent
me ; I mean the wish to resume my poetical
labours : time was stealing away fast from me
and nothing done, and my mind still seeming
unfit to do anything. At first I had a strong
impulse to write a poem that should record my
brother's virtues, and be worthy of his memory.
I began to give vent to my feelings^ with this
view; but I was overpowered by my subject, and
could not proceed. I composed much, but it is
all lost except a few lines, as it came from me in
such a torrent that I was unable to remember it.
I could not hold the pen myself, and the subject
was such that I could not employ Mrs. Words-
worth or my sister as my amanuensis. This work
must therefore rest a while till I am something
calmer ; I shall, however, never be at peace till,
as far as in me lies, I have done justice to my

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[may

departed brother's memory. His heroic death
(the particulars of which I have now accurately
collected from several of the survivors) exacts
this from me, and still more his singularly inter-
esting character, and virtuous and innocent life.

Unable to proceed with this work, I turned
my thoughts again to the Poem on my own Life,
and you will be glad to hear that I have added
300 lines to it in the course of last week. Two
books more will conclude it. It will be not much
less than 9000 lines, — not hundred but thousand
lines long, — an alarming length ! and a thing
unprecedented in literary history that a man
should talk so much about himself. It is not self-
conceit, as you will know well, that has induced
me to do this, but real humility^ I began the
work because I was unprepared to treat any more
arduous subject, and diffident of my own powers.
Here, at least, I hoped that to a certain degree
I should be sure of succeeding, as I had nothing
to do but describe what I had felt and thought ;
therefore could not easily be bewildered. This
might certainly have been done in narrower
compass by a man of more address ; but I have
done my best. If, when the work shall be
finished, it appears to the judicious to have re-

WORDSWORTH.

dundancies, they shall be lopped off, if possible ;
but this is very difficult to do, when a man has
written with thought ; and this defect, whenever
I have suspected it, or found it to exist in any
writings of mine, I have always found incurable.
The fault lies too deep, and is in the first concep-
tion. If you see Coleridge before I do, do not
speak of this to him, as I should like to have his
judgment unpreoccupied by such an apprehension.
I wish much to have your further opinion of the
young Roscius, above all of his Hamlet. It is
certainly impossible that he should understand
the character, that is, the composition of the
character. But many of the sentiments which
are put into Hamlet's mouth he may be supposed
to be capable of feeling, and to a certain degree
of entering into the spirit of some of the situa-
tions. I never saw Hamlet acted myself, nor
do I know what kind of a play they make of
it. I think I have heard that some parts which
I consider among the finest are omitted : in
particular, Hamlet's wild language after the
ghost has disappeared. The players have taken
intolerable liberties with Shakespeare's Plays,
especially with Richard the Third, which,
though a character admirably conceived and

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[may

drawn, is in some scenes bad enough in Shake-
speare himself ; but the play, as it is now acted,
has always appeared to me a disgrace to the
English stage. Hamlet, 1 suppose, is treated
by them with more reverence. They are both
characters far, far above the abilities of any actor
whom I have ever seen. Henderson was before
my time, and, of course, Garrick.

We are looking anxiously for Coleridge ; per-
haps he may be with you now.

Is your building going on ? I was mortified
that the sweet little valley, of which you spoke
some time ago, was no longer in the possession
of your family : it is the place, I believe, where
that illustrious and most extraordinary man,
Beaumont the poet, and his brother, were born.
One is astonished when one thinks of that man
having been only eight-and-twenty years of age,
for I believe he was no more when he died.
Shakespeare, we are told, had scarcely written a
single play at that age. I hope, for the sake of
poets, you are proud of these men.

Lady Beaumont mentioned some time ago that
you were painting a picture from The Thorn :
is it finished ? I should like to see it ; the poem
is a favourite with me, and I shall love it the

WORDSWORTH.

better for the honour you have done it. We
shall be most happy to have the other drawing
which you promised us some time ago. The
dimensions of the Applethwaite one are eight
inches high, and a very little above ten broad ;
this,, of course,, exclusive of the margin.

* * * * *

When we look back upon this spring, it seems
like a dreary dream to us. But I trust in God
that we shall yet e bear up and steer right on-
ward/

Farewell. — I am, your affectionate friend,

W. Wordsworth.

My sister thanks Lady Beaumont for her letter,
the short one of the other day, and hopes to be
able to write soon. Have you seen Southey's
Madoc ? We have it in the house, but have
deferred reading it, having been too busy with
the child. I should like to know how it pleases
you.

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JUNE

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, June 3d, 1805.

My dear Sir George, — I write to you from the
moss-hut at the top of my orchard, the sun just
sinking behind the hills in front of the entrance,
and his light falling upon the green moss of the
side opposite me. A linnet is singing in the
tree above, and the children of some of our
neighbours, who have been to-day little John's
visitors, are playing below, equally noisy and
happy. The green fields in the level area of the
vale, and part of the lake, lie before me in
quietness. I have just been reading two news-
papers, full of factious brawls about Lord Mel-
ville and his delinquencies, ravage of the French
in the West Indies, victories of the English
in the East, fleets of ours roaming the sea
in search of enemies whom they cannot find,
etc. etc. etc. ; and I have asked myself more
than once lately, if my affections can be in the
right place, caring as I do so little about what
the wrorld seems to care so much for. All this
seems to me, c a tale told by an idiot, full of

WORDSWORTH.

sound and fury, signifying nothing.' It is plea-
sant in such a mood to turn one's thoughts to a
good man and a dear friend. I have, therefore,
taken up the pen to write to you. And, first,
let me thank you (which I ought to have done
long ago, and should have done, but that I knew
I had a licence from you to procrastinate) for
your most acceptable present of Coleridge's por-
trait, welcome in itself, and more so as coming
from you. It is as good a resemblance as I
expect to see of Coleridge, taking it all together,
for I consider C.'s as a face absolutely imprac-
ticable. Mrs. Wordsworth was overjoyed at the
sight of the print ; Dorothy and I much pleased.
We think it excellent about the eyes and fore-
head, which are the finest parts of C/s face,
and the general contour of the face is well given ;
but, to my sister and me, it seems to fail sadly
about the middle of the face, particularly at the
bottom of the nose. Mrs. W. feels this also ;
and my sister so much, that, except when she
covers the whole of the middle of the face, it
seems to her so entirely to alter the expression,
as rather to confound than revive in her mind
the remembrance of the original. We think, as
far as mere likeness goes, Hazlitt's is better ;

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JUNE

but the expression in Hazlitt's is quite dolorous
and funereal ; that in this is much more pleas-
ing, though certainly falling far below what one
would wish to see infused into a picture of C.
Mrs. C. received a day or two ago a letter from
a friend who had letters from Malta, not from
Coleridge, but a Miss Stoddart, who is there
with her brother. These letters are of the date
of the fifth of March, and speak of him as look-
ing well and being well, and talking of coming
home, but doubtful whether by land or sea.

I have the pleasure to say that I finished my
poem1 about a fortnight ago. I had looked for-
ward to the day as a most happy one ; and I was
indeed grateful to God for giving me life to com-
plete the work, such as it is. But it was not a
happy day for me; I was dejected on many
accounts : when I looked back upon the per-
formance, it seemed to have a dead wreight about
it, — the reality so far short of the expectation.
It was the first long labour that I had finished ;
and the doubt whether I should ever live to
write The Recluse, and the sense which I had
of this poem being so far below what I seemed
capable of executing, depressed me much ; above
all, many heavy thoughts of my poor departed

WORDSWORTH.

brother hung upon me. the joy which I should
have had in showing him the manuscript, and a
thousand other vain fancies and dreams. I have
spoken of this, because it was a state of feeling
new to me, the occasion being new. This work
may be considered as a sort of portico to The
Recluse, part of the same building, which I
hope to be able, ere long, to begin with in
earnest ; and if I am permitted to bring it to a
conclusion, and to write, further, a narrative
poem of the epic kind, I shall consider the task
of my life as over. I ought to add, that I have
the satisfaction of finding the present poem not
quite of so alarming a length as I apprehended.

I wish much to hear from you, if you have
leisure ; but as you are so indulgent to me, it
would be the highest injustice were I otherwise
to you.

We have read Madoc, and been highly
pleased with it. It abounds in beautiful pic-
tures and descriptions, happily introduced, and
there is an animation diffused through the whole
story; though it cannot, perhaps, be said that
any of the characters interest you much, except,
perhaps, young Llewelyn, whose situation is
highly interesting, and he appears to me the

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JUNE

best conceived and sustained character in the
piece. His speech to his uncle at their meeting
in the island is particularly interesting. The
poem fails in the highest gifts of the poet's
mind, imagination in the true sense of the word,
and knowledge of human nature and the human
heart. There is nothing that shows the hand of
the great master; but the beauties in descrip-
tion are innumerable ; for instance, that of the
figure of the bard, towards the beginning of the
convention of the bards, receiving the poetic
inspiration ; that of the wife of Tlalala, the
savage, going out to meet her husband ; that of
Madoc, and the Aztecan king with a long name,
preparing for battle ; everywhere, indeed, you
have beautiful descriptions, and it is a work
which does the author high credit, I think. I
should like to know your opinion of it. Fare-
well ! Best remembrances and love to Lady
Beaumont. — Believe me, my dear Sir George,
your most sincere friend, W. Wordsworth.

My sister thanks Lady Beaumont for her letter,
and will write in a few days. I find that Lady
B. has been pleased much by Madoc.

1 The Prelude.— Ed.

WORDSWORTH.

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, July %9tk, 1805.

My dear Sir George, — We have all here been
made happy in hearing that you are so much
better. I write now chiefly on account of a mis-
take which you seem to be under concerning
Coleridge. I guess from your letter that you
suppose him to be appointed to the place of
secretary to Sir A. Ball. This is by no means
the case. He is merely an occasional substitute
for Mr. Chapman,, who is secretary, and no doubt
must have resumed his office long before this ;
as he had been expected every day some time
before the date of C.'s last letter. The para-
graph in the paper (which we also saw) posi-
tively states that C. is appointed secretary. This
is an error, and has been merely put in upon
common rumour.

When you were ill I had a thought which I
will mention to you. It was this : I wished to
know how you were at present situated as to
house-room at Coleorton, that is, whether you

94 COLEORTON LETTERS.

could have found a corner for me to put my
head in, in case I could have contrived to have
commanded three weeks' time, or so. I am at
present, and shall be for some time, engaged
with a sick friend, who has come all the way
from Bristol on purpose to see us, and has taken
lodgings in the village ; but should you be unwell
again, and my company be like to tend in the
least to exhilarate you, I should like to know,
that were it in my power to go and see you, I
might have the liberty to do so.

Having such reason to expect Coleridge at
present (were we at liberty in other respects), I
cannot think of taking my family a tour, agree-
able to your kind suggestion. Something has,
however, already been added by your means to
our comforts, in the way of books, and probably
we shall be able to make an excursion ere the
summer be over.

By the by, are you possessed of Houbraken
and Vertue's c Heads of Illustrious Persons/ with
anecdotes of their lives by Birch ? I had an
opportunity of purchasing a handsome copy (far
below the price at which it now sells, I believe,
in London) at Penrith, a few weeks ago ; and if
you have not a copy, and think the work has any

[JULY

WORDSWORTH.

merits you would please me greatly by giving it
a place in your library.

I am glad you like the passage in Madoc
about Llewelyn. Southey's mind does not seem
strong enough to draw the picture of a hero.
The character of Madoc is often very insipid and
contemptible ; for instance,, when he is told that
the Hoamen have surprised Caermadoc, and of
course (he has reason to believe) butchered or
carried away all the women and children,, what
does the author make him do ? Think of Goer-
vyl and Llayan very tenderly forsooth ; but not
a word about his people ! In short, according
to my notion, the character is throughout lan-
guidly conceived, and, as you observe, the con-
trast between her and Llewelyn makes him look
very mean. I made a mistake when I pointed
out a beautiful passage as being in the beginning
of the meeting of the bards ; it occurs before,
and ends thus :

His eyes were closed ;
His head, as if in reverence to receive
The inspiration, bent ; and as he raised
His glowing countenance and brighter eye
And swept with passionate hands the ringing harp.

The verses of your ancestor Francis Beaumont
the younger, are very elegant and harmonious

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JULY

and written with true feeling. Is this the only
poem of his extant? There are some pleasing
verses (I think by Corbet, Bishop of Norwich) on
the death of Francis Beaumont the elder. They
end, I remember, thus, alluding to his short
life :

By whose sole death appears,
Wit 's a disease consumes men in few years.

I have never seen the works of the brother of
the dramatic poet ; but I know he wrote a poem
upon the Battle of Bosworth Field. Probably it
will be in the volume which you have found,
which it would give me great pleasure to see, as
also Charnwood Rocks, which must have a strik-
ing effect in that country. I am highly flattered
by Lady Beaumont's favourable opinion of me
and my poems.

My sister will answer her affectionate letter
very soon ; she would have done it before now,
but she has been from home three days and
unwell, or entirely engrossed with some visitors
whom we have had, the rest of her time.

The letter which you will find accompanying
this is from an acquaintance of ours to his wife.
He lives at Patterdale, and she was over at
Grasmere. We thought it would interest you.

WORDSWORTH.

Farewell. — I remain, in hopes of good news of
your health, your affectionate and sincere friend,

W. Wordsworth.

From Mr. Luff of Patterdale to his Wife.

Palterdale, July 23d (1805).

An event happened here last night which has
greatly affected the whole village, and particu-
larly myself.

The body, or, more properly speaking, bones
of a poor fellow were yesterday found by Willy
Harrison, in the rocks at the head of Red Tarn.
It appears that he was attempting to descend
the Pass from Helvellyn to the Tarn, when he
lost his footing and was dashed to pieces.

His name appears to have been Charles Gough.
Several things were found in his pockets ; fish-
ing tackle, memorandums, a gold watch, silver
pencil, Claude Lorraine glasses, etc.

Poor fellow ! It is very strange, but we met
him when we were last reviewed in April ; and
he then wanted John Harrison to turn back with
him and go to the Tarn ; but he was told that
his request could , not be complied with. It

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JULY

appears that he proceeded [forward] and met
his fate.

You will be much interested to know that a
spaniel bitch was found alive by his side, where
she has remained upwards of three months, guard-
ing the bones of her master ; but she had become
so wild that it was with difficulty she was taken.
She is in good condition ; and, what is more odd,
had whelped a pup, which from its size must
have lived some weeks, but when found was
lying dead by the bones. The bones are as
completely freed from flesh as if they had been
anatomised, and perfectly white and dry. The
head can nowhere be found. The arms, one
thigh, and a leg, were all that remained in the
clothes. All the rest were scattered about here
and there.

When I reflect on my own wanderings and the
many dangerous situations I have found myself
in, in the pursuit of game, I cannot help thank-
ing Providence that I am now here to relate to
you this melancholy tale. I wonder whether
poor Fan's affection would under similar circum-
stances have equalled that of the little spaniel.

WORDSWORTH.

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, August 1st1

My dear Friend, — It was very good in you to
write to me, much more than I deserved, as I
have shown by suffering your letter to remain
so long unanswered. I deserve your friendship,
I hope, but not your letters ; indeed, I am
unworthy of anybody's, being a correspondent
intolerably remiss. I am glad you liked the
verses.2 I could not but write them with feel-
ing, having such a subject, and one that touched
me so nearly. Your delicacy in not leading me
to the picture3 did not escape me. It is a
melancholy satisfaction to me to connect my
dear brother with anybody whom I love much ;
and I knew that the verses would give you
pleasure as a proof of my affection for you.
The picture was to me a very moving one ; it
exists in my mind at this moment as if it were
before my eyes. ,

100

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

We have been looking every day for a letter
from Lady Beaumont, with a hope still remain-
ing that we may see you this summer. Lady
Beaumont speaks, in her last, of your health being
better; we were much concerned to hear that
you had not been so well as usual. You need not
fear that any inability on your part thoroughly
to enjoy the country would make your com-
pany less acceptable. You would certainly en-
joy much, and we should have the pleasure of
contributing to your pleasure, with the hope
of seeing you better, which would brighten
everything.

I do not know whether my sister has written
since we had another account of Coleridge, I
am sorry I cannot say from him. He was at
Leghorn, with a friend, on their way to England :
so that we still continue to look for him daily.
He had lost all his papers ; how we are not told.
This grieves and vexes me much ; probably (but
it is not on this account — his loss being I daresay
irreparable — that I am either much vexed or
grieved) a large collection of the poems is gone
with the rest ; among others five books of the
Poem upon my own Life, but of all these I have
copies. He, I am afraid, has none of his old

WORDSWORTH.

101

writings. Within this last month I have returned
to The Recluse, and have written 700 additional
lines. Should Coleridge return, so that I might
have some conversation with him on the subject,
I should go on swimmingly. We have been
very little interrupted with tourist company this
summer, and, of course, being for the most part
well, have enjoyed ourselves much. I am now
writing in the moss-hut,4 which is my study, with
a heavy thunder shower pouring down before
me. It is a place of retirement for the eye
(though the public road glimmers through the
apple-trees a few yards below), and well suited
to my occupations. I cannot, however, refrain
from smiling at the situation in which I some-
times find myself here ; as, for instance, the
other morning when I was calling some lofty
notes out of my harp, chanting of shepherds,
and solitude, etc., I heard a voice (which I knew
to be a male voice, whose also it was) crying out
from the road below, in a tone exquisitely effemi-
nate, e Sautez, sautez, apportez, apportez ; vous
ne le ferez pas, venez done Pandore, venez,
venez.' Guess who this creature could be thus
speaking to his lap-dog, in the midst of our
venerable mountains ? It is one of two nonde-

102 COLEORTON LETTERS. [AUG.

scripts who have taken the cottage for the
summer which we thought you might occupy,
and who go about, parading the valley, in all
kinds of fantastic dresses, green leather caps,
turkey half-boots, jackets of fine linen, or long
dressing-gowns, as suit them. Now you hear
them in the roads ; now you find them lolling
in this attire, book in hand, by a brook side.
Then they pass your window in their curricle, —
to-day the horses tandem-wise, and to-morrow
abreast, or on horseback, as suits their fancies.
One of them we suspect to be painted, and the
other, though a pale-cheeked puppy, is surely
not surpassed by his blooming brother. If you
come you will see them, and I promise you they
will be a treat to you. We still think it possible
that we may winter at Coleorton, but we shrink
from the thought of going so far without seeing
you, and if we procure a house in this neighbour-
hood we certainly shall. We are the more willing
to be kept in a state of suspense as long as Cole-
ridge is unarrived. I don't know that after
expressing my thanks for your many kindnesses
to me when under your roof, and at all times,
and the happiness I derive from your friendship,
I can fill this paper better than by adding a

WORDSWORTH.

103

sonnet from Michael Angelo, translated some
time since. Farewell, — yours most affection-
ately, W. Wordsworth.

[Then follows the sonnet To the Supreme Being, begin-
ning c The prayers I make/ etc.]

1 The year is not given, but it must be 1805. — Ed.

2 The Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a picture of Peele Castle
in a storm. — Ed.

3 Sir George's own picture of Peele Castle, which suggested
the stanzas. — Ed.

4 The moss-hut in the orchard garden, behind Dove Cottage.
Seep. 80; also Dorothy Wordsworth's letter to Lady Beaumont,
June 17, 1806. — Ed.

104

COLEORTON LETTERS.

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, October A^ih, 1805.

My dear Sir George, — I was very glad to learn
that you had room for me at Coleorton, and far
more so, that your health was so much mended.
Lady Beaumont's last letter to my sister has made
us wish that you were fairly through your present
engagements with workmen and builders, and,
as to improvements, had smoothed over the first
difficulties, and gotten things into a way of im-
proving themselves. I do not suppose that any
man ever built a house, without finding in the
progress of it obstacles that were unforeseen, and
something that might have been better planned ;
things teasing and vexatious when they come,
however the mind may have been made up at
the outset to a general expectation of the kind.

With respect to the grounds, you have there
the advantage of being in good hands, namely,
those of Nature ; and, assuredly, whatever petty
crosses from contrariety of opinion or any other
cause you may now meet with, these will

WORDSWORTH.

105

soon disappear, and leave nothing behind but
satisfaction and harmony. Setting out from
the distinction made by Coleridge which you
mentioned, that your house will belong to the
country, and not the country be an appendage to
your house, you cannot be wrong. Indeed, in
the present state of society, I see nothing in-
teresting either to the imagination or the heart,
and, of course, nothing which true taste can ap-
prove, in any interference with Nature, grounded
upon any other principle. In times when the
feudal system was in its vigour, and the personal
importance of every chieftain might be said to
depend entirely upon the extent of his landed
property and rights of seignory ; when the king,
in the habits of people's minds, was considered
as the primary and true proprietor of the soil,
which was granted out by him to different lords,
and again by them to their several tenants under
them, for the joint defence of all — there might
have been something imposing to the imagination
in the whole face of a district, testifying, ob-
trusively even, its dependence upon its chief.
Such an image would have been in the spirit of
the society, implying power, grandeur, military
state, and security; and, less directly, in the

106

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[OCT.

person of the chief, high birth, and knightly
education and accomplishments ; in short, the
most of what was then deemed interesting or
affecting. Yet, with the exception of large parks
and forests, nothing of this kind was known at
that time, and these were left in their wild
state, so that such display of ownership, so far
from taking from the beauty of Nature, was itself
a chief cause of that beauty being left unspoiled
and unimpaired. The improvements, when the
place was sufficiently tranquil to admit of any,
though absurd and monstrous in themselves,
were confined (as our present Laureate has ob-
served, I remember, in one of his Essays) to an
acre or two about the house in the shape of
garden with terraces, etc. So that Nature had
greatly the advantage in those days, when what
has been called English gardening was unheard
of. This is now beginning to be perceived, and
we are setting out to travel backwards. Painters
and poets have had the credit of being reckoned
the fathers of English gardening ; they will also
have, hereafter, the better praise of being fathers
of a better taste. Error is in general nothing
more than getting hold of good things, as
everything has two handles, by the wrong one.

WORDSWORTH.

107

It was a misconception of the meaning and
principles of poets and painters which gave
countenance to the modern system of gardening,
which is now, I hope, on the decline ; in other
words, we are submitting to the rule which you
at present are guided by, that of having our
houses belong to the country, which will of
course lead us back to the simplicity of Nature.
And leaving your own individual sentiments and
present work out of the question, what good
can come of any other guide, under any cir-
cumstances ? We have, indeed, distinctions of
rank, hereditary legislators, and large landed
proprietors; but from numberless causes the
state of society is so much altered, that nothing
of that lofty or imposing interest, formerly
attached to large property in land, can now
exist ; none of the poetic pride, and pomp, and
circumstance ; nor anything that can be con-
sidered as making amends for violation done to
the holiness of Nature. Let us take an extreme
case, such as a residence of a Duke of Norfolk,
or Northumberland : of course you would expect
a mansion, in some degree answerable to their
consequence, with all conveniencies. The names
of Howard and Percy will always stand high in

108 COLEORTON LETTERS. [OCT.

the regards of Englishmen ; but it is degrading,
not only to such families as these, but to every
really interesting one, to suppose that their im-
portance will be most felt where most displayed,
particularly in the way I am now alluding to.
This is contracting a general feeling into a local
one. Besides, were it not so as to what concerns
the past, a man would be sadly astray, who
should go, for example, to modernise Alnwick
and its dependencies, with his head full of the
ancient Percies : he would find nothing there
which would remind him of them, except by
contrast ; and of that kind of admonition he
would, indeed, have enough. But this by the
by, for it is against the principle itself I am
contending, and not the misapplication of it.
After what was said above, I may ask if any-
thing connected with the families of Howard and
Percy, and their rank and influence, and thus
with the state of government and society, could,
in the present age, be deemed a recompence for
their thrusting themselves in between us and
Nature. Surely it is a substitution of little things
for great when we would put a whole country7
into a nobleman's livery. I know nothing which
to me would be so pleasing or affecting, as to be

WORDSWORTH.

109

able to say when I am in the midst of a large
estate — This man is not the victim of his con-
dition ; he is not the spoiled child of worldly
grandeur ; the thought of himself does not take
the lead in his enjoyments ; he is, where he
ought to be, lowly-minded, and has human
feelings ; he has a true relish of simplicity,
and therefore stands the best chance of being
happy; at least, without it there is no happiness,
because there can be no true sense of the bounty
and beauty of the creation, or insight into the
constitution of the human mind. Let a man of
wealth and influence show, by the appearance of
the country in his neighbourhood, that he treads
in the steps of the good sense of the age, and
occasionally goes foremost ; let him give coun-
tenance to improvements in agriculture, steering
clear of the pedantry of it, and showing that
its grossest utilities will connect themselves
harmoniously with the more intellectual arts,
and even thrive the best under such connection ;
let him do his utmost to be surrounded with
tenants living comfortably, which will always
bring with it the best of all graces which a
country can have — flourishing fields and happy-
looking houses ; and, in that part of his estate

110

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[OCT.

devoted to park and pleasure-ground, let him
keep himself as much out of sight as possible ;
let Nature be all in all, taking care that every-
thing done by man shall be in the way of being
adopted by her. If people choose that a great
mansion should be the chief figure in a country,
let this kind of keeping prevail through the
picture, and true taste will find no fault.

I am writing now rather for writing's sake
than anything else, for I have many remem-
brances beating about in my head which you
would little suspect. I have been thinking of
you, and Coleridge, and our Scotch Tour, and
Lord Lowther's grounds, and Heaven knows
what. I have had before me the tremendously
long ell-wide gravel walks of the Duke of Athol,
among the wild glens of Blair, Bruar Water, and
Dunkeld, brushed neatly, without a blade of
grass or weed upon them, or anything that bore
traces of a human footstep ; much indeed of
human hands, but wear or tear of foot was
none. Thence I passed to our neighbour, Lord
Lowther. You know that his predecessor,
greatly, without doubt, to the advantage of
the place, left it to take care of itself. The
present Lord seems disposed to do something,

WORDSWORTH.

Ill

but not much. He has a neighbour, a Quaker,
an amiable, inoffensive man,1 and a little of a
poet too, who has amused himself, upon his
own small estate upon the Emont, in twining
pathways along the banks of the river, making
little cells and bowers with inscriptions of his
own writing, all very pretty as not spreading
far. This man is at present Arbiter Elegan-
tiarum, or master of the grounds, at Lowther ;
and what he has done hitherto is very well, as
it is little more than making accessible what
could not before be got at. You know some-
thing of Lowther. I believe a more delightful
spot is not under the sun. Last summer I
had a charming walk along the river, for which
I was indebted to this man, whose intention
is to carry the walk along the river-side till
it joins the great road at Lowther Bridge,
which you will recollect, just under Brougham,
about a mile from Penrith. This to my great
sorrow ! for the manufactured walk, which was
absolutely necessary in many places, will in one
place pass through a few hundred yards of
forest ground, and will there efface the most
beautiful specimen of a forest pathway ever seen
by human eyes, and which I have paced many an

112 COLEORTON LETTERS. [OCT.

hour when I was a youth, with some of those I
best love. This path winds on under the trees
with the wantonness of a river or a living
creature ; and even if I may say so with the
subtlety of a spirit, contracting or enlarging
itself, visible or invisible as it likes. There is
a continued opening between the trees, a narrow
slip of green turf besprinkled with flowers,
chiefly daisies ; and here it is, if I may use
the same kind of language, that this pretty
path plays its pranks, wearing away the turf
and flowers at its pleasure. When I took the
walk I was speaking of, last summer, it was
Sunday. I met several of the people of the
country posting to and from church, in dif-
ferent parts ; and in a retired spot by the
river-side were two musicians (belonging prob-
ably to some corps of volunteers) playing upon
the hautboy and clarionet. You may guess I
was not a little delighted ; and as you had
been a visitor at Lowther, I could not help
wishing you were with me. And now I am
brought to the sentiment which occasioned this
detail ; I may say, brought back to my subject,
which is this, — that all just and solid pleasure
in natural objects rests upon two pillars, God

(■'

1805] WORDSWORTH. 113

and Man. Laying out grounds, as it is called,,
may be considered as a liberal art, in some
sort like poetry and painting ; and its object,
like that of all the liberal arts, is, or ought
to be, to move the affections under the control
of good sense ; that is, of the best and wisest.
Speaking with more precision, it is to assist
Nature in moving the affections, and surely, as
I have said, the affections of those who have
the deepest perception of the beauty of Nature,
who have the most valuable feelings, — that is,
the most permanent, the most independent, the
most ennobling, connected with Nature and
human life. No liberal art aims merely at the
gratification of an individual or a class : the
painter or poet is degraded in proportion as he
does so ; the true servants of the Arts pay homage
to the human kind as impersonated in unwarped
and enlightened minds. If this be so when
we are merely putting together words or colours,
how much more ought the feeling to prevail
when we are in the midst of the realities of
things; of the beauty and harmony, of the joy
and happiness, of living creatures ; of men and
children, of birds and beasts, of hills and streams,
and trees and flowers ; with the changes of night

114 COLEORTON LETTERS. [OCT.

and day, evening and morning, summer and
winter; and all their unwearied actions and
energies, as benign in the spirit that animates
them as they are beautiful and grand in that
form and clothing which is given to them for
the delight of our senses ! But I must stop,
for you feel these things as deeply as I ; more
deeply, if it were only for this, that you have
lived longer. What then shall we say of many
great mansions with their unqualified expulsion
of human creatures from their neighbourhood,
happy or not, houses which do what is fabled
of the upas-tree ? — that they breathe out death
and desolation ! I know you will feel with me
here, both as a man, and a lover and professor
of the Arts. I was glad to hear from Lady
Beaumont that you did not think of removing
your village. Of course much here will depend
upon circumstances ; above all, with what kind
of inhabitants, from the nature of the employ-
ments in that district, the village is likely to
be stocked. But for my part, strip my neigh-
bourhood of human beings, and I should think
it one of the greatest privations I could undergo.
You have all the poverty of solitude, nothing
of its elevation. In a word, if I were disposed

WORDSWORTH.

115

to write a sermon (and this is something like
one) upon the subject of taste in natural beauty,
I should take for my text the little pathway
in Lowther Woods, and all which I had to say
would begin and end in the human heart, as
under the direction of the Divine Nature, con-
ferring value on the objects of the senses, and
pointing out what is valuable in them.

I began this subject wTith Coleorton in my
thoughts, and a confidence, that whatever diffi-
culties or crosses (as of many good things it is
not easy to choose the best) you might meet
with in the practical application of your prin-
ciples of Taste, yet, being what they are, you
will soon be pleased and satisfied. Only (if I
may take the freedom to say so) do not give
way too much to others : considering what your
studies and pursuits have been, your own judg-
ment must be the best : professional men may
suggest hints, but I would keep the decision
to myself.

Lady Beaumont utters something like an ap-
prehension that the slowness of workmen, or
other impediments, may prevent our families
meeting at Coleorton next summer. We shall
be sorry for this, the more so as the same

116 COLEORTON LETTERS. [OCT.

cause will hinder your coming hither. At all
events, we shall depend upon her frankness,
which we take most kindly indeed — I mean,
on the promise she has made, to let us know
whether you are gotten so far through your
work as to make it comfortable for us all to
be together.

I cannot close this letter without a word
about myself. I am sorry to say I am not yet
settled to any serious employment. The expec-
tation of Coleridge not a little unhinges me,
and still more, the number of visitors we have
had ; but winter is approaching, and I have
good hopes. I mentioned Michael Angelo's
poetry some time ago ; it is the most difficult
to construe I ever met with, but just what
you would expect from such a man, showing
abundantly how conversant his soul was with
great things. There is a mistake in the world
concerning the Italian language ; the poetry
of Dante and Michael Angelo proves that if
there be little majesty and strength in Italian
verse, the fault is in the authors, and not in
the tongue. I can translate, and have trans-
lated, two books of Ariosto, at the rate, nearly,
of 100 lines a day ; but so much meaning has

WORDSWORTH.

117

been put by Michael Angelo into so little
room, and that meaning sometimes so excel-
lent in itself, that I found the difficulty of
translating him insurmountable. I attempted,
at least, fifteen of the Sonnets, but could not
anywhere succeed. I have sent you the only
one I was able to finish; it is far from being
the best or most characteristic, but the others
were too much for me.2

I began this letter about a week ago, having
been interrupted. I mention this,, because I
have on this account to apologise to Lady Beau-
mont, and to my sister also, whose intention
it was to have written, but being very much
engaged, she put it off as I was writing. We
have been weaning Dorothy, and since, she has
had a return of the croup, from an imprudent
exposure on a very cold day. But she is doing
well again ; and my sister will write very soon.
Lady Beaumont inquired how game might be
sent us. There is a direct conveyance from
Manchester to Kendal by the mail, and a parcel
directed for me, to be delivered at Kendal,
immediately, to John Brockbank, Ambleside^
postman, would, I dare say, find its way to
us expeditiously enough ; only you will have the

118

COLEORTON LETTERS.

goodness to mention in your letters when you
do send anything, otherwise we may not be
aware of any mistake.

I am glad the Houbraken will be acceptable,
and will send it any way you shall think proper,
though, perhaps., as it would only make a small
parcel, there might be some risk in trusting
it to the wagon or mail, unless it could be
conveniently inquired after. No news of Cole-
ridge. The length of this letter is quite for-
midable ; forgive it. Farewell — and believe me,
my dear Sir George^ your truly affectionate
friend, W. Wordsworth.

1 Mr. Thomas Wilkinson. See Poem, 'To his Spade.'

2 'Yes, Hope may with my strong desire keep pace,' etc.

WORDSWORTH.

119

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

{Probable date, 1805.)
. . . We anxiously expected a letter yester-
day from Lady Beaumont, hoping to hear that
you continue to advance towards recovery, but
no letter coming, we have many fears, and I can
no longer defer writing, which, however, I wTould
not do if I thought you would consider yourself
as obliged to write again. For Heaven's sake,
my dear friend, let us both be quite easy on this
head. I assure you I do not measure the interest
you take in me or mine either by the length or
frequency of your letters : if I but hear from time
to time how you are going on in health, or upon
any occasion when my sympathies can give you
comfort or pleasure, this is all I look for. Lady
Beaumont is so good as to write often to my
sister, so that through her we may learn these
things ; and, therefore, never think of writing to
me. Should such an impulse of genial spirits as
one sometimes feels at the thought of taking a
walk, making a sketch, or playing a tune ever

120 COLEORTON LETTERS. [I^°5

prompt you to take up the pen,, let me hear from
you^ but not otherwise ; never trouble your head
about it a moment.

I am glad my verses gave you pleasure ; I
have been hunting over and over in my mind
through all that I have written for something
to send yon, and cannot pitch upon anything.
I have composed lately two small poems in
memory of my brother, but they are too melan-
choly^ else I would willingly copy them. My
sister, however, shall transcribe something or
other, though I have not a single line in my
possession which quite satisfies me for such a
purpose. . . .

[Then follows a quotation from The Prelude, Book viii. —
From

6 What sounds are these, Helvellyn, that are heard '
to ' their calm abode.']

The above is from the beginning of one of the
books upon my own earlier life. It has been
extracted not so much from any notion of its
merit, as from its standing more independent of
the rest of the poem than perhaps any other
part of it. The few lines which you will find on
the next page require a long preface^ which

WORDSWORTH.

121

my sister begs you will excuse. It is from her
Journal of our tour in Scotland. We had visited
the Trossachs and Loch Katrine, and were so
much pleased as to return thither towards the
end of our tour. We had been entertained at a
ferryman's house, a Highland hut on the banks
of the lake, and were again making our way
thither on foot, a journey of about six miles,
along the bank of the lake. My sister then
proceeds thus : e The path, or road (for it was
neither one nor the other, but something be-
tween both), was the pleasantest I have ever
travelled in my life for the same length of way ;
now with marks of sledges or wheels, or none at
all, bare or green, as it might happen ; now a
little descent, now a level, sometimes a shady
lane, at others an open track through green
fields ; then again it would lead us into thick
coppice woods, which often entirely excluded
the lake, and again admitted it by glimpses.
We have never had a more delightful walk than
this evening — Ben Lomond, and the three pointed-
topped mountains of Loch Lomond, which we
had seen from the Garrison, were very majestic
under the clear sky ; the lake was perfectly still,
the air sweet and mild. I felt how much more

122 COLEORTON LETTERS.

interesting it is to visit a place where we have
been before, than it can possibly be the first time,
except under peculiar circumstances. The sun
had been set some time, when, being within a
quarter of a mile of the ferryman's hut, and close
to the shore of the calm lake, we met two neatly-
dressed women without hats, who had probably
been taking their Sunday evening's walk. One
of them said to us in a friendly, soft tone of voice :
"What, you are stepping westward }" I cannot
describe how affecting this simple expression was
in that remote place, with the western sky in
front yet glowing with the departed sun. William
wrote the following poem long after, in remem-
brance of his feelings and mine/ . . .

[8o6]

WORDSWORTH. 123

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, February 11th, 1806.

My dear Sir George, — Upon opening this
letter, you must have seen that it is accompanied
with a copy of verses.1 I hope they will give
you some pleasure, as it will be the best way in
which they can repay me for a little vexation, of
which they have been the cause. They were
written several weeks ago, and I wished to send
them to you, but could not muster up resolution,
as I felt that they were so unworthy of the
subject. Accordingly I kept them by me from
week to week, with a hope (which has proved
vain) that, in some happy moment, a new fit of
inspiration would help me to mend them ; and
hence my silence, which, with your usual good-
ness, I know you will excuse.

You will find that the verses are allusive to
Lord Nelson ; and they will show that I must
have sympathised with you in admiration of the
man, and sorrow for our loss. Yet, considering
the matter coolly, there was little to regret.

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COLEORTON LETTERS.

[FEB.

The state of Lord Nelson's health, I suppose,
was such that he could not have lived long ; and
the first burst of exultation upon landing in his
native country, and his reception here, would
have been dearly bought, perhaps, by pain and
bodily weakness, and distress among his friends,
which he could neither remove nor alleviate.
Few men have ever died under circumstances so
likely to make their death of benefit to their
country : it is not easy to see what his life could
have done comparable to it. The loss of such
men as Lord Nelson is, indeed, great and real ;
but surely not for the reason which makes most
people grieve — a supposition that no other such
man is in the country. The old ballad has
taught us how to feel on these occasions :

I trust I have within my realm
Five hundred good as he.

But this is the evil, that nowhere is merit so
much under the power of what (to avoid a more
serious expression) one may call that of fortune,
as in military and naval service ; and it is five
hundred to one that such men will not have
attained situations where they can show them-
selves, so that the country may know in whom

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

125

to trust. Lord Nelson had attained that situa-
tion ; and, therefore, I think (and not for the
other reason), ought we chiefly to lament that
he is taken from us.

Mr. Pitt is also gone ! by tens of thousands
looked upon in like manner as a great loss. For
my own part, as probably you know, I have
never been able to regard his political life with
complacency. I believe him, however, to have
been as disinterested a man, and as true a lover
of his country as it was possible for so ambitious
a man to be. His first wish (though probably
unknown to himself) was that his country should
prosper under his administration ; his next that
it should prosper. Could the order of these
wishes have been reversed, Mr. Pitt would have
avoided many of the grievous mistakes into
which, I think, he fell. I know, my dear Sir
George, you will give me credit for speaking
without arrogance ; and I am aware it is not
unlikely you may differ greatly from me in these
points. But I like, in some things, to differ with
a friend, and that he should know I differ from
him ; it seems to make a more healthy friend-
ship, to act as a relief to those notions and
feelings which we have in common, and to give

126

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[FEB.

them a grace and spirit which they could not
otherwise possess.

There were some parts in the long letter which
I wrote about laying out grounds, in which the
expression must have been left imperfect. I
like splendid mansions in their proper places,
and have no objection to large or even obtrusive
houses in themselves. My dislike is to that
system of gardening which, because a house
happens to be large or splendid,, and stands at
the head of a large domain, establishes it there-
fore as a principle that the house ought to dye
all the surrounding country with a strength of
colourings and to an extent proportionate to its
own importance. This system, I think, is founded
in false taste, false feeling, and its effects dis-
gusting in the highest degree. The reason you
mention as having induced you to build was
worthy of you, and gave me the highest pleasure.
But I hope God will grant you and Lady Beau-
mont life to enjoy yourselves the fruit of your
exertions for many years.

We have lately had much anxiety about Cole-
ridge. What can have become of him? It
must be upwards of three months since he landed
at Trieste. Has he returned to Malta, think

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

127

you, or what can have befallen him ? He has
never since been heard of.

We are all well at present, and unite in affec-
tionate wishes to you and Lady Beaumont. —
Believe me, your sincere friend,

W. Wordsworth.

I have thoughts of sending the verses to a
newspaper.

1 ' The Happy Warrior. '—Ed.

J 28 COLEORTON LETTERS. [jUNE

Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth to
Lady Beaumont.

Grasmere, Tuesday, June 3.

My dear Lady Beaumont, — I arrived at happy
Grasmere Sunday before last, i.e. ten days ago.
so that you see I have taken time to breathe
before I informed you how I sped ; but I know I
have an unlimited indulgence from you and Sir
George in these respects. I found everybody
well; little Dorothy the most altered, — I ought to
say improved, — for she is grown the most delight-
ful chatterer ever seen ; all acquired in two
months ; nor is it the least of her recommenda-
tions that she is more delighted with me than
with a new toy, and is never easy, if in my
sight, when out of my arms.

Since I reached home I have passed the chief
part of my time out of doors, much of it in a
wood by the lake-side, a spot which you would
love. The Muses, without any wooing on my
part, came to me there one morning, and mur-
mured a few verses, in which I did not forget

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

129

Grosvenor Square, as you will know if I ever
take up the strain again, for it is not finished.
We have had a great deal of talk about your
summer visit ; and we cannot satisfy ourselves
entirely about the inn : we have fears concerning
the sitting-room, which, having no prospect, you
would find dull. There is a small cottage close
to the lake with two pleasant sitting-rooms that
look upon it, under and between two very re-
spectable pollard oaks, and these two rooms are
charming in summer ; but then the house is ill-
provided with bedrooms ; but my sister shall
describe it for you, and you shall judge.

I have received a very obliging letter from Mr.
Price, who seems much pleased with what I said
upon the Sublime. He speaks in warm terms of
Sir George, and the many obligations he has to
his friendship, and is kind enough to invite me
to Foxley, holding out the inducement of the
neighbouring scenery of the Wye.

I shall write to Sir George in a short time ;
meanwhile you will remember me most affection-
ately to him. — And believe me, my dear Lady
Beaumont, most sensible of your goodness, most
happy in possessing your friendship, and now
faithfully yours, Wm. Wordsworth,

130

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JUNE

My dear Friend, — My brother has put his
letter into my hands to direct and fold up, and I
cannot let it go without a word. A thousand
thousand thanks for all your goodness to him !
and you have sent him home to us with looks
and health so much improved that we knew not
how to express our happiness.

I shall write as soon as we have an answer
respecting the possibility of your having the
house which my brother speaks of, the cottage
near the Lake. I am afraid you would not be
at ease in the small confined room at the inn.
Adieu, my dear Lady Beaumont. — Believe me
ever faithfully and affectionately yours,

D. Wordsworth.

I am very sorry you have had so much trouble
about the Journal. You are very good in taking
charge of my brother's concerns. I am afraid he
left you a great deal to do, for he is a very bad
manager of his own affairs, being so much used
to leave all little things to us.

l8o6] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

131

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.

Grasmere, Tuesday evening, June 17th.
My dear Friend, — You will rejoice with us in
my sister's safety, and the birth of a son. There
was something peculiarly affecting to us in the
time and manner of this child's coming into
the world. It was like the very same thing
over again which happened three years ago ;
for on the 1 8th of June., on such another morn-
ing, after such a clear and starlight night, the
birds singing in the orchard in full assembly
as on this 15th, the young swallows chirping
in the self-same nest at the chamber window,
the rose-trees rich with roses in the garden,
the sun shining on the mountains, the air still
and balmy, — on such a morning was Johnny
born, and all our first feelings were revived
at the birth of his brother two hours later in
the day, and three days earlier in the month;
and I fancied that I felt a double rushing-in
of love for it, when I saw the child, as if I had
both what had been the first-born infant John's

132

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JUNE

share of love to give it, and its own. We said
it was to be called William at first, but we
have since had many discussions and doubts
about the name ; and Southey, who was here
this mornings is decided against William; he
would keep the fathers name distinct, and not
have two William Wordsworihs. It never struck
us in this way; but we have another objection
which does not go beyond our own household
and our own particular friends, i.e. that my
brother is always called William amongst us, and
it will create great confusion, and we cannot
endure the notion of giving up the sound of a
name, which, applied to him, is so dear to us.
In the case of Dorothy there is often much
confusion ; but it is not so bad as it would be
in this case, and besides, if it were only equally
confusing, the inconvenience would be doubled.
Your kind letter to my brother arrived yester-
day, with your sister's most interesting account
of her sensations on ascending the Mont Delivers.
I shuddered while I read ; and though admira-
tion of the fortitude with which she endured
the agony of her fear was the uppermost senti-
ment, I could not but slightly blame her for
putting herself into such a situation, being so

iSo6]

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

133

well aware of her constitutional disposition to
be so affected. For my own part, I do think
that I should have died under it, and nothing
could prevail upon me to undertake such an
expedition. When I was in the whispering
gallery at St. Paul's, I had the most dreadful
sensation of giddiness and fear that I ever
experienced. I could not move one foot beyond
another, and I retired immediately, unable to
look down ; and I am sure when the sense of
personal danger should be added to that other
bodily fear, it would be too much for me ;
therefore I had reason to sympathise with your
sister in the course of her narrative.

I hope you will find the inn tolerably comfort-
able, as I am informed that one of the upper
rooms, which was formerly a bedroom, is con-
verted into a sitting-room, which entirely does
away our objections to the house for you ; the
upper rooms being airy and pleasant, and out
of the way of noise. Among my lesser cares,
and hopes, and wishes, connected with the
event of your coming to Grasmere, the desire
for fine weather is uppermost; but it will be
the rainy season of this country, and we have
had so much fine and dry weather, that we

134

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JUNE

must look forward to some deduction from
our comfort on that score. We received your
second letter with the tidings of the finding
of the Journal, the day after we had received
the first. You may be sure we were very glad
that it was found. It is a delicious evening,
and after my confinement to the house for
these two days past I now doubly enjoy the
quiet of the moss - hut, where I am writing.
Adieu ! — Believe me, my dear Lady Beaumont,
your affectionate friend,

D. Wordsworth.

I have expressed myself obscurely about our
objections to calling the child by William's
name.1 I meant that we should not like to
call him but as we have been used to do. I
could not change William for Brother, in speak-
ing familiarly, and his wife could not endure
to call him Mr. Wordsworth. Dorothy is in
ecstasies whenever she sees her little brother,
and she talks about him not only the day
through, but in her dreams at night, 'Baby,
baby ! '

1 The child was christened Thomas. — Ed.

i8o6]

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

135

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.

June 24<th, 1806.
My dear Friend, — I begin my letter with an
expectation of being summoned at every moment
to deliver it up, along with others which I have
been writing, to my brother and Miss Hut-
chinson, who are going to meet the post at
Rydal ; but I cannot omit informing you how
we go on, as I know you will be anxious about
us ; besides, we have received the box, etc.,
and it is fit that I should release your mind
of all further care respecting its contents, which
came in perfect safety, and have given general
satisfaction, and great joy to your god-daughter
(for poor Johnny is not here to look at the beauti-
ful library which you have sent him), but could
you see Dorothy, how she spreads her hands
and arms, and how she exclaims over each book,
as she takes it from the case, and the whole
together — such a number ! — (when by special
favour she is permitted to view them), then
you would indeed be repaid for the trouble

136

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JUNE

and pains you have taken ! She lifts her arms,
and shouts and dances, and calls out, e Johnny,
book ! Dear godmother sent Johnny book ! '
She looks upon them as sacred to Johnny, and
does not attempt to abuse them. She is also
very much delighted with her little almanack,
but not in such an enthusiastic manner ; for
I never saw anything like her joy over the
whole library of books. But enough of this.
I spoil a pen with every letter I write. The
binding of the manuscript destined for Coleridge
is exactly to our minds, and Mr. Tuffin is not
only forgiven, but we feel a little compunction
for the reproaches which slipped from us when
we supposed it to be lost.

I am called for. My brother and Miss Hut-
chinson are ready. Adieu ! — Yours ever,

D. Wordsworth.

Grasmere, 2Mh June,

Tuesday evening. — They were too late for the
post this morning, and brought back my letter,
which I open, to copy a part of a letter relating
to Coleridge, which we have just received from
Dr. Stoddart of Malta. He begins :

( As it is probable that you have neither heard

i8o6]

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

137

of nor from C. for some time, I have determined
to write to you in order to relieve in some
measure your anxiety and that of his family.
I have not, however, any very precise infor-
mation to communicate. The sum of the whole
is that he is probably safe at Rome, but may
be obliged to reside there privately, and per-
haps under a borrowed name, till he finds an
opportunity of returning either to Malta or
England. He left this place in September last,
intending to go through the kingdom of Naples
to Trieste, and so through Germany home. On
the 26th of September he wrote me a short
note from Syracuse, which is the only letter
that has been received from him at Malta. He
was then on his way to Messina, and meant to
go from thence to Venice or Trieste, having
at these three places a credit of <£500 on re-
spectable bankers, correspondents of Mr. Noble,
a friend of mine here. From Naples at the
approach of the French in January he with-
drew with a Mr. B., son of the Member for
H., to Rome ; but a little after his departure,
sent a box of papers and other things to Mr.
G. Noble, who with his family escaped to
Messina, and took the box with him soon after

138

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JUNE

the French entered Naples in February. From
this precaution, I conclude that C. wished to
travel incog., as he might with justice appre-
hend that the official character in which he
acted here might expose him to suspicion ; and,
as the French so openly violate all the rights
of neutrality, they might think fit to seize him
even at Rome. However, I think he has suffi-
ciently obviated all danger of that kind, and
being with Mr. B., he will probably be in no
want of money. I imagine his object will be
to get to Trieste, which is now restored to
the Emperor, and where his banker's credit
will be of service to him/

This letter is certainly not calculated to set
us entirely at ease, for if there be need of so
much caution there must be some danger, and
we have reason yet to apprehend further delay ;
but we are furnished with a probable reason for
his silence, and we may be satisfied that he is
not in want of money, which is very comfortable.
I am afraid the other side of the sheet will be
scarcely legible. I wrote in great haste in the
morning, and had hardly room left for Stoddart's
letter. Adieu, dear Lady B. — Yours ever,

D. W.

i8o6]

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

139

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.

Grasmere, July 9th, Monday.1

My dear Friend, — My brother received Sir
George's letter on Friday evening, and his in-
tention of replying to it himself prevented me
from writing to you, which I was going to
do when Sir George's letter arrived ; but my
brother having been obliged to go with Miss
Hutchinson for a few days to Park House, /
take the pen merely to tell you what accom-
modations we are likely to have for you at
the inn, and to give you our opinions and
feelings respecting our journey into Leicester-
shire for the winter. I need not say how deeply
sensible we are of Sir George's kindness and
yours in this instance, and we have so many
reasons to be grateful to you, that I am little
inclined to dwell upon this particular one. In
the first place, then, we seem to have no other
spot to turn to, for there is not a house in this
neighbourhood ; and our continuing here during
another winter would be attended with so many

140

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JULY

serious inconveniences, especially to my brother,
who has no quiet corner in which to pursue
his studies, no room but that where we all sit
(to say nothing of the unwholesomeness of these
low small rooms for such a number of persons),
that we feel that nothing short of absolute
impossibility should prevent us from moving.
Ever since my brother s return from London,
we have thought about our removal to Cole-
orton as the only scheme in our power ; but
I abstained from speaking of it to yon, think-
ing that at our meeting all things might be
better explained. The solitude would be no
evil to us with such a treasure of books, and
even the dirty roads a trifling one, the house
being so large that it would not be irksome
or unhealthful to be confined there in rainy
weather. But there is one circumstance which
casts a damp upon our prospects, and is the
only one that prevents us from looking forward
to the journey with unmingled pleasure, — the
being in your house and you not there ; so
near you, as it were, and not enjoying your
society. On this account, we could not but
have many regrets ; therefore, if any house
should become vacant in this neighbourhood

l8o6] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH. 141

before the beginning of winter, of course it
would be desirable to take it, and defer our jour-
ney till the end of next summer, when you
will be there also — for I hope there will be no
further delay in the finishing of your building.

One week of the month of July is gone by,
and you thought it possible you might be with
us before the end of the month, so I hope
it will not be long before you have arranged
your plans. As to the house at Grasmere, I
think there is no doubt but that you may be
very comfortable there. I daresay that you
might have lodgings at Keswick (if you have
no objections to being in the town), where
you might be well enough accommodated for
a week or a fortnight ; but I believe there
are no entire houses to be let even in the
town, and I know there are none in the neigh-
bourhood, therefore our removing thither is out
of the question, for my brother could not endure
the thought of living in the town, and we
have all great objections to it. Now, if you
wish for lodgings in Keswick, you must let us
know as soon as you have settled your plans,
and we will write to Mr. Edmondson. I have
just begun to read Mr. Knight's book,2 which

142

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JULY

you were very kind in sending. The Lay of
the Last Minstrel was also in the box, which
we think must have come by mistake. We
have two copies of our own sent to us by Mr.
Scott. Adieu ! — Yours affectionately,

D. Wordsworth.

1 The year must be 1806.— Ed.

2 Doubtless the Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of
Taste, by Richard Payne Knight. — Ed.

1806] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

143

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.

July 23d, Grasmere.1
My dear Friend, — I fear that there is little
chance left of our seeing you here this summer,
and with true sorrow do we resign the hope. I
had always seemed to foresee that some would
arise, yet when your letter reached us, I felt
that my foresight had been of small use to me,
the disappointment was so heavy. Let us trust,
however, in the hope of better fortune next
summer, and that we may be near to each other
for a longer time than you could now have spared
from your important engagements at home. We
are all exceedingly concerned also for the cause
which is likely to deprive us of the happiness of
seeing you, and especially my brother, who has
a great respect for Mr. Colly,, and never fails to
speak of the attentions he received from him,
with a pleasing and grateful remembrance of
his kindness.

A few minutes before your letter arrived
William had set forward with his daughter on

144

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JULY

his back, and our little nursemaid and I were on
foot following after, all on our road over the
high mountain pass betwixt Grasmere and Patter-
dale, by which road we were going to Park
House, to remove the child from the danger
of hooping-cough, which is prevalent at Gras-
mere. The letter was sent after us, and we
halted by the wayside to read it. This was a
sad damping at our setting out. We had, how-
ever, on the whole a prosperous journey. A
young man assisted my brother in bearing the
child over the mountains. We went down Uls-
water in a boat, and arrived in the evening at
Park House, about three miles further. Our
little darling had been the sweetest companion
that ever travellers had. She noticed the crags,
the streams, everything we saw, and when we
passed by any living creatures, sheep or cows,
she began to sing her baby songs which she has
learned from us, e Baa ! baa ! black sheep/ and
c Curly cow bonny/ She was not frightened
in the boat, but for half an hour she screamed
dreadfully, wanting to be out and in the water.
This was all the trouble we had with her in the
whole journey, for she fell asleep, and did not
wake till we landed. We found Johnny per-

l8o6] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH. 145

fectly well, and overjoyed to see us. Poor
fellow ! he had met with an accident a few
weeks before, which one cannot but lament, as
it entirely mars the expression of his countenance.
He fell through a hay-rack, and got a severe
blow on his cheek, which, though there is no
scar, has left an indention or hole in the cheek,
which appears, to those who do not know him,
like a dimple ; and, indeed, it is like a dimple ;
but it has changed his rich, joyous smile into a
silly simper. I have had a letter from an old
servant, whose distresses my brother related to
you, and to whom you so kindly sent the sum of
£5. She overflows with gratitude ; goes on to
tell me that by the means of your liberality, and
that of others who have been interested for her,
she is in no worse condition than she was before
the fire happened. Poor soul ! She says, ' I can
never be sufficiently thankful that our lives were
spared. We were all fast asleep in bed, and, as
God would have it, my little baby waked, and
wakened me, and the flames were rushing in at
the window/ She is an uncomplaining sufferer,
for, since she left our home, she has endured
very much from many causes, especially the
cruelty of her husband, and sickness and death

146

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JULY

of children, and her own weak health ; yet,
though she had no other means of support but
the labour of her husband and her own for
several years, she never uttered one expression
which might induce me to think she needed
any comfort which money could procure ; quite
the contrary, yet when we sent her any assist-
ance, it was plain how much she needed it by
her account of the manner in which she disposed
of that little money, chiefly in fuel ! Then comes
this sorrow, and now again they are going into
the house, which has been rebuilt, and she will
patiently again enter upon a way of life which I
know is utterly discordant with all her feelings,
except a spirit of submission to the will of her
husband, and the hope of providing a main-
tenance for her children. I had not intended
to detain you so long with talking of this poor
woman, but knowing that you would sympathise
with me in the pleasure I feel in contemplating
a conduct so delicate and disinterested with
respect to money in a person placed in so low a
rank in society, I went on, and was loath to
stop. — Believe me, dear Lady Beaumont, your
affectionate friend,

D. Wordsworth.

i8o6]

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

147

I have said nothing about our residence for
the winter. The truth is that the thought of
being in your house and not seeing you always
hangs heavy upon us, and if we can meet with a
place here (but I am afraid we shall not) we
shall take it„ and next autumn, if your house be
still at liberty, we can spend two or three months
near you. I must again add, however, that we
do not dread any of the inconveniences you
mention.

We left both John and Dorothy at Park
House. William's disposition to procrastinate
has yet prevented him from writing to Sir
George, who will, he knows, excuse him. He
is going on with The Recluse.

1 No year is mentioned, but evidently it was 1806. — Ed.

148

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

August 5th.1

My dear Sir George, — I wrote to you a few
days ago. I now write again under a consider-
able embarrassment of mind occasioned by the
enclosed letter, which I wish you would be so
good as to read after I have furnished you with
the necessary preface.

In consequence of this house being too small
for us, I have for some time wished to purchase,
somewhere or other in this neighbourhood, a
few acres of land, with a house attached to them,
which might be made large enough by expend-
ing upon it £200 or £300. I have sought in
vain for such a thing in this Vale, and at last I
fixed upon a beautiful spot in Patterdale, which
I think is worth £700, and for which I offered
£800, the utmost farthing I was resolved to give,
thinking it nothing but reasonable, as the pro-
perty was not offered to sale, that I should pay
£100 more than it was worth. Now, it happens
that the property in question adjoins an estate

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

149

of a clergyman of considerable fortune, who also
applied for it, and in consequence, chiefly, I
believe, of this double application, the proprietors
fixed upon it the price of £1000. Of course I
gave up all thoughts of the thing, merely writing
to the person whom I employed to manage the
affair for me, that if he could get the estate for
£800 he was to do so. The people stood to
their demand of £1000. In this state of the
business, Thomas Wilkinson, the Quaker, whom
I mentioned to you in a letter some time ago,
the writer of the enclosed, and my agent in the
affair, mentioned the circumstance to Lord
Lowther, as you will see in the letter, which I
beg you would now read. The unhandsome
conduct alluded to is that of the clergyman, to
whom I wrote, stating my reasons for wishing to
purchase this property, and begging him to give
up his claim, as the property, I knew, was of no
real consequence to him. My letter produced
no effect but that of sending him to treat with
the people in an urigentlemanly and underhand
way.

I suppose you now to have read the enclosed,
and your astonishment will be little less than
mine. I could scarce believe my eyes when I

150

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

came to the conclusion. This good Quaker, for
an excellent simple-hearted man he is, no doubt
is eagerly waiting for a letter of thanks and joy-
ful congratulation from me ; and alas ! I know
not which way to turn me in the affair. Undo
the bargain I cannot ; to pay the whole money
out of my own pocket would be an inhuman
return to Lord Lowther for his generous kind-
ness. Strange it is that W. could not perceive
that, if I was unwilling to pay an exorbitant
price out of my own money, I should be still
more unwilling to pay it out of another s, especi-
ally of a person who had shown to me so much
kindness, treated me with such respectful deli-
cacy, and given such striking proof of his desire
to apply his property to beneficent purposes.

My dear Sir George, I do not ask your advice
in the case, for I must be obliged to act before I
receive it, and how to act I am sure I do not
know. In the first place, if I could possibly
avoid it I would not wound the feelings of
Thomas Wilkinson, who has been animated by
the best and purest motives through the whole
course of his innocent and useful life. He has
been betrayed into this hasty step by imagining
this purchase to be of far more consequence to me

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

151

than it really is. I was by no means determined
to build upon it, but I wished to have such a
place where I might do so if I liked ; and, above
all, I had no doubt that I could dispose of it at
any time for as much as I meant to give for it.
Why, I am led to say to myself, have I troubled
you with this letter ? I can only say that I have
satisfaction in opening out my mind to you, and
perhaps you may suggest something that will
assist me to see my way, as I think now of writ-
ing to T. Wilkinson merely to say that I have
received his letter, and shall be over at his house
in a few days. In this case I may have time to
receive your answer, for which I shall be most
thankful. Pray address me at Mr. John Monk-
house' s, Penrith, Cumberland. — Most affection-
ately yours,

Wm. Wordsworth.

My sister will express my thanks to Lady
Beaumont for her forethought about my accom-
modation at Coleorton. I ought not to have
left this to a postscript.

1 The year must be 1806. — Ed.

152

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

Postscript by Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady
Beaumont.

Moss-Hut, Wednesday morning.
Being compelled to give up all remaining hope
of seeing you here this season, it is indeed time
we should talk decidedly about our plans for the
winter. In three months more, unless the frosts
and winds spare some chance corner of this quiet
nook, all the trees which are now rustling in the
breeze with their green boughs will be leafless
and bare. The prospect of seeing you, though
but for a day or two, at Coleorton makes us look
to the journey with entire satisfaction ; and the
moment we received your first letter we deter-
mined to seek no further for a house in this
neighbourhood, except in case of Coleridge's
wintering at Keswick. Should he determine so
to do, if within three or four miles of Keswick
(which is very improbable) a suitable house
should be vacant, my brother will take it for the
sake of being near to Coleridge. When we meet
you will know how deeply we feel your goodness,
my dear Lady Beaumont, in attending with such
minuteness to our wants and comforts. I would

l8o6] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

153

thank you now again and again ; but something
more than words is needed to express the habitual
sentiments of gratitude and love with which we
think of you.

As to the manner of our journey, we must not
go in the car. Perhaps my sister might receive
no injury, if she be tolerably strong, but we
should be afraid for the little baby, and for
Dorothy, she being liable to attacks of the croup
whenever she is exposed to cold. We shall,
therefore (that is, my brother and sister, the
three children and I), travel in a postchaise,
which we shall certainly e fill/ as well as did
Mrs. Gilpin when she repaired to Edmonton,
' her sister and her sisters child, herself and
children three ' ; and our servant and the girl
who helps us to take care of the children must
go in the coach to the town nearest to Coleorton.
Since the birth of Thomas we have had this girl,
whom we find very useful, and could not now
(having three children so young to look after) do
without except at the expense of sacrificing all
opportunities of leisure and quiet ; at least leisure
and quiet enjoyed in common by their mother
and me, for one of us must be with them the
day through. Having these two servants, there-

154

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

fore, we shall have no occasion for assistance
from the farmer's servant except in case of
accidents.

Mrs. Wordsworth is perfectly well, and thinks
of going with William in a few days to Park
House to see John and Dorothy, whom we are
afraid we shall hardly be able to have at home
again before we leave Grasmere, as hooping-
cough is in every quarter of the Vale, and there
are yet a great number of children who have not
had it. The house seems strangely dull without
them. Every day we may look for news of
Coleridge's arrival. I thank you for taking the
trouble to transcribe those excellent lines from
Sir John Beaumont's poems. They interested
us very much, and we wish for the pleasure of
reading his works when we are on the ground
which he and his brother trod. Adieu ! — Your
affectionate friend,

Dorothy Wordsworth.

I am sure you will enter into our feelings
about the purchase of the estate. It is a most
mortifying affair, and perplexing too, though
nothing can be done to prevent completing the
purchase.

[8o6]

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH. I 55

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.

Grasmere, Aug. 15th.1

My dear Friend, — I have at last the happi-
ness of telling you that Coleridge is actually in
sight of his own dear country. He is now off
Portsmouth, where he must remain to perform
quarantine. A Mr. Russel, an artist, is with
him, and by his means we have heard ; for
Coleridge has not written himself. I have no
doubt (as Mrs. Coleridge thinks also) that he is
afraid to inquire after us, lest he should hear of
some new sorrow. We have only had one letter
from him, written since our poor brother s death.
Mr. Russel had written to his friends at Exeter,
they to the Coleridges at Ottery, and the Cole-
ridges to Mrs. C, so at least ten days of the time
of his imprisonment must be gone by ; but the
letter does not mention when they arrived, nor
the name of the ship. My brother, and sister,
and little Thomas, are at Park House. My joy at
Coleridge's return will be quite a burthen to me
till I know that they too have received the news.

156

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

I never felt the want of them at home half so
much as for these three last hours, since Mrs.
Coleridge's note came. William intends calling
upon Lord Lowther before his return. He hoped
to find a letter from Sir George at Penrith,
and intended writing to him. We were deeply
affected by Sir George's last letter, which came
the day before my brother and sister went to
Park House. William said he should write
again to him immediately. I write in great
haste to save the post. God bless you, my dear
friend ! I hope we shall hear from you, when
you next write, that Sir George has recovered
his spirits after the severe and painful shock he
has had ; for death, when it comes to a young
person, is a shock for the survivors, however
truly we may feel that it was a merciful dispen-
sation.— Adieu, my good and dear friend, yours
ever, D. W.

When I next write I will transcribe the
Sonnet of Michel Angelo, of which my brother
sent Sir George the translation.

1 The year was 1806. — Ed.

l8o6]

WORDSWORTH. 157

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Grasmere, Aug, 2lst, 1806.

My dear Sir George, — First let me congratu-
late you on Coleridge's arrival, and upon what is a
still nearer and deeper subject of congratulation, —
his recovery from a most dangerous illness, which
prevented his writing to us. Their passage had
been long irksome and dreadful, he having been
ill, I believe, the whole of the time, and was much
worse on their arrival, and while performing quar-
antine ; so much so that his life was despaired of.
He had dictated a letter to me under that feeling,
to be sent to me in case he did not recover.
Have we not reason to be thankful ? As soon as
he set his foot upon land he was greatly reno-
vated, and last Monday, the day on which he
wrote, was uncommonly well. He was at his
friend Lamb's chambers in London. His letter
is very short, and he does not say a word when
we are to expect him down.

Many thanks for your prompt reply to my
troublesome letter. I wrote in a great hurry,

158

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[AUG.

and must have expressed myself ill, or your view
of the subject could not have differed so much
from mine. My uneasiness did not arise so much
from being thus betrayed into an obligation to
Lord Lowther, as from the specific circumstances
attending that obligation. It is my opinion that
a man of letters (and indeed all public men of
every pursuit) ought to be severely frugal. If I
ought to be frugal of my own money, much more
ought I to be so of another person s, particularly
of a generous-minded person. Now the object
here was not worth an additional £200 of my
own money, and therefore much less of Lord
Lowther's. Had indeed the object been very
important, such as putting me in possession of a
place where I had long lived, and with which I
had connected many interesting feelings, I might
not have thought that any sense of honour or
independence, however nice, ought to call upon
me to shrink from such an act of kindness and
munificence. But this was not the case here ;
the spot had little to recommend it to me but its
own beauty, and Providence has dealt so kindly
with this country that this is little distinction.

Applethwaite, I hope, will remain in my family
for many generations. With my will it should

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

159

never be parted with, unless the character of the
place be entirely changed, as I am sorry to say
there is some reason to apprehend ; a cotton-mill
being, I am told, already planted, or to be planted,
in the glen. I shall see the place to-morrow.
The matter of your advice about building I have
long laid to my heart ; and it has (as is common
in these cases) just answered the purpose of
quickening the temptation to be dabbling. The
temptation I like, and I should content myself
with the pleasure it gives me through my whole
life (I have at least built five hundred houses,
in five hundred different places, with garden,
grounds, etc.), but I have no house to cover me,
and know not where to get one. But seriously,
I do not mean to entangle myself with rashness,
— this is what everybody has Said, and means
nothing. What then shall I say ? My object is
not to build a new house, only to add two rooms
to an old one, and this on the supposition that
we do not go southward with Coleridge.

I called at Lowther, and did not find his
Lordship at home. Since my return hither I
wrote him a letter, in which I confined myself to
expressing my thanks for the great honour he
had done me. I told Wilkinson frankly, yet in

160

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[aug.

as gentle a manner as I could, that I should not
have accepted Lord L/s offer if I had been
consulted, and upon what principle I should have
refused. This he took very well, and seemed
quite happy that he had not consulted me. The
spot I re-examined last Sunday, and a most
beautiful one it is. How happy should I be to
show it to you and Lady Beaumont ! I don't
know any place where more recommendation
lies in so little room.

I have not yet thanked you for your former
letter, which gave me very great pleasure. Lady
Beaumont had mentioned your friend's death,
but I did not know that he was one to whom you
were so much attached. Do not be afraid of
dividing any of your painful sensations with me.
I know no passion where sympathy is of so much
use as in grief. I like your idea of republishing
your ancestor's poems, and promise myself great
pleasure in reading them. If I could be of any
service in editing the book, nothing would give
me more satisfaction, either in the way of pre-
fixing a Life, carrying the work through the press,
or anything else.

As soon as we have seen Coleridge we shall be
able to say something positive about our journey

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

161

to Coleorton ; at present we indulge great hopes
ot seeing you.

The Vale is relieved of our harlequins, to the
great loss of my daughter, who had conceived a
great attachment for them and their doggy.

Farewell. Affectionate remembrance to your-
self and Lady Beaumont from us all. — Ever
yours, W. Wordsworth.

Keep T. Wilkinson's letter till we meet.

162

COLEORTON LETTERS.

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.1

My dear Friend, — I have put off writing to
you for many days,, hoping always that the next
post would bring us a letter from Coleridge
himself, from which some comfort might be
gathered, and a more accurate estimate formed
of the state of his mind. But no letter has arrived.
I have, however, the satisfaction of telling you
that he is to be at home on the 29th of this
month. He has written to acquaint Mrs. Cole-
ridge with this, and has told her that he has
some notion of giving a course of lectures in
London in the winter. This is all we know ; I
do not imagine he has mentioned the subject of
the lectures to Mrs. C. Whatever his plan may
be, I confess I very much wish he may not put it
in practice, and for many reasons : first, because
I fear his health would suffer from late hours, and
being led too much into company ; and, in the
second place, I would fain see him address the
whole powers of his soul to some great Work in
prose or verse, of which the effect would be per-

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

163

manent, and not personal and transitory. I do
not mean to say that much permanent good may
not be produced by communicating knowledge
by means of lectures, but a man is perpetually
tempted to lower himself to his hearers, to bring
them into sympathy with him, and no one would
be more likely to yield to such temptation than
Coleridge ; therefore at every period of his life
the objection would have applied to his devoting
himself to this employment. But at this present
time it seems almost necessary that he should
have one grand object before him, which would
turn his thoughts away in a steady course from
his own unhappy lot, and so prevent petty irri-
tations and distresses, and in the end produce a
habit of reconcilement and submission. My dear
friend, you will judge how much we have suffered
from anxiety and distress within the few last
weeks. We have long known how unfit Cole-
ridge and his wife were for each other ; but we
had hoped that his ill-health, and the present
need his children have of his care and fatherly
instructions, and the reflections of his own mind
during this long absence would have so wrought
upon him that he might have returned home
with comfort, ready to partake of the blessings of

164

COLEORTON LETTERS.

friendship, which he surely has in an abundant
degree, and to devote himself to his studies
and his children. I now trust he has brought
himself into this state of mind, but as we have
had no letters from him since that miserable
one which we received a short time before my
brother mentioned the subject to Sir George, I
do not know what his views are. Poor soul ! he
had a struggle of many years, striving to bring
Mrs. C. to a change of temper, and something
like communion with him in his enjoyments. He
is now, I trust, effectually convinced that he has no
power of this sort, and he has had so long a time
to know and feel this that I would gladly hope
things will not be so bad as he imagines when he
finds himself once again with his children under
his own roof. If he can make use of the know-
ledge which he has of the utter impossibility of
producing powers and qualities of mind which
are not in her, or of much changing what is
unsuitable to his disposition, I do not think he
will be unhappy; I am sure I think he ought
not to be miserable. While he imagined he had
anything to hope for, no wonder that his per-
petual disappointments made him so ! But
suppose him once reconciled to that one great

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

165

want, an utter want of sympathy, I believe he
may live in peace and quiet. Mrs. C. has many
excellent properties, as you observe : she is un-
remitting in her attentions as a nurse to her
children, and, indeed, I believe she would
have made an excellent wife to many persons.
Coleridge is as little fitted for her as she for
him, and I am truly sorry for her. When we
meet you at Coleorton I trust we shall have been
with Coleridge long enough to know what comfort
he is likely to have. In the meantime I will say
no more on this distressing subject unless some
change should happen much for the better or the
worse. I hope everything from the effect of my
brother s conversation upon Coleridge's mind ;
and bitterly do I regret that he did not at first
go to London to meet him, as I think he might
have roused him up, and preserved him from
much of the misery that he has endured. Now
I must speak of the delight with which we look
forward to seeing you. We think that nothing
will prevent our accepting your kind offer ; for it
is plain that Coleridge does not wish us to go to
Keswick, as he has not replied to that part of
William's letter in which he spoke of our plans
for the winter. We shall therefore prepare

166

COLEORTON LETTERS,

ourselves to be ready to set off at any time that
you shall appoint, so as to be with you a few days
before your departure from Coleorton ; and happy
indeed shall we be to turn our faces . . .

1 This letter is undated, and is incomplete. It evidently
belongs to the year 1806.-- Ed.

WORDSWORTH.

167

Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont.

Nov. 10, 1806.
My dear Sir George, — I was moved even to
weakness by your letter. It is indeed a great
happiness to me to be beloved by you, and to
think upon what foundation that love rests. We
were as sorry to part with you as you could be to
part with us ; perhaps even more so, as I believe
is almost always the case with those who are left
behind. We did not see the rising sun, which
you describe so feelingly ; but the setting was as
glorious to us as to you. We looked at it with
great delight from your fireside ; but were foolish
enough — at least I was — to believe that we should
have such every night ; that it was a gift of our
new situation, and so the colours and motions
which touched you so much were thrown away
upon me, — at least it seems so now. You know
that at Grasmere the high mountains conceal
from us in a great measure the splendour of a
western sky at sunset. We have often regretted
this, and we congratulated ourselves that even-

168

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

ing on the opportunity which our present com-
paratively flat situation would give us of enjoying
a sight from which we had long been excluded.
We have had one or two fine evenings since, but
nothing like that first, which was, I think, the
most magnificent I ever beheld. The whole day
had been uncommonly fine. We have not yet
rambled much about. Once I have been at the fir-
wood with Miss Hutchinson, once at the pool with

Mrs. W , and once had a long walk with my

sister about the house and in the kitchen garden.
Your new building and its immediate neighbour-
hood improve upon me much. I am particularly
pleased with the spot — a discovery since your
departure — which Lady Beaumont has chosen, I
conjecture, for a winter garden. It will be a
delightful place. By the by, there is a pleasing
paper in the Spectator (in the 7th vol., No. 477)
upon this subject. The whole is well worth read-
ing, particularly that part which relates to the
winter garden. He mentions hollies and horn-
beam as plants which his place is full of. The
horn-beam I do not know, but the holly I looked
for in Lady B/s ground, and could not find.
For its own beauty, and for the sake of the
hills and crags of the North, let it be scattered

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

169

here in profusion. It is of slow growth, no
doubt, but not so slow as generally supposed ;
and then it does grow, and somebody, we hope,
will enjoy it. Among the barbarisers of our
beautiful Lake region, of those who bring and
those who take away, there are few whom I
have execrated more than an extirpator of this
beautiful shrub, or rather tree — the holly. This
worthy, thank Heaven ! is not a native, but he
comes from far ; and his business is to make
bird-lime, and so down go these fair creatures
of Nature wherever he can find them. (You
know probably that bird-lime is made of the bark
of the holly.) I would also plant yew, which
is of still slower growth. One thought struck
me too relating to the grounds, which I will
mention. I should not be for planting many
forest-trees about the house, by the side of those
which are already at their full growth ; when I
planted at all there, I should rather choose
thickets of underwood, hazels, wild roses, honey-
suckle, hollies, thorns, and trailing plants, such
as traveller's joy, etc. My reason, in addition to
the beauty of these, is that they would never be
compared with the grown-up trees, whereas
young trees of the same kind will, and must,

170

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

appear insignificant. Observe my remark only
applies to placing these young trees by the side
of the others ; where there is an open space of
any size it does not hold.

Miss Hutchinson and I were at church yester-
day. We were pleased with the singing ; and I
have often heard a far worse parson — I mean as
to reading. His sermon was, to be sure, as
village sermons often are, very injudicious: a
most knowing discourse about the Gnostics, and
other hard names of those who were /{adversaries
to Christianity and ^enemies of the Gospel. How
strangely injudicious this is ! — and yet nothing
so frequent. I remember hearing Coleridge say
that he was once at Keswick Church, and Mr.
Denton (you know him) was very entertaining
in guarding his hearers against the inordinate
vice of ambition, what a shocking thing it was
to be a courtier, and sacrifice a man's hopes in
heaven for worldly state and power. I don't
know that I ever heard in a country pulpit a
sermon that had any special bearing on the
condition of the majority of the audience. I
was sorry to see at Coleorton few middle-aged
men, or even women ; the congregation consisted
almost entirely of old persons, particularly old

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

171

men, and boys and girls. The girls were not
well dressed. Their clothes were indeed clean,
but not tidy ; they were in this respect a shock-
ing contrast to our congregation at Grasmere. I
think I saw the old man (not he with the spec-
tacles) whose face, especially the eyes, Mr. Davie
has drawn so well. Lady Beaumont will re-
member that I objected to the shoulders in the
drawing as being those of a young man. This
is the case in nature, — in this instance I mean ;
for I never saw before such shoulders and un-
withered arms with so aged a face as in the
person I allude to.

I have talked much chit-chat. I have chosen
to do this rather than give way to my feelings,
which were powerfully called out by your affect-
ing and beautiful letter. I will say this, and
this only — that I esteem your friendship one of
the best gifts of my life. I and my family owe
much to you and Lady Beaumont. I need not
say that I do not mean any additions to our
comfort or happiness which, with respect to
external things, you have been enabled to make ;
but I speak of soul indebted to soul. I entirely
participate your feelings upon your birthday : it
is a trick of kings and people in power to make

172

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

birthdays matter of rejoicing. Children too,
with their holiday and plum-pudding, rejoice ;
but to them, in their inner hearts, it is a day

That tells of time misspent, of comfort lost,
Of fair occasions gone for ever by.
I long to see Wilkie's picture. From Lady Beau-
mont's account, it seems to have surpassed your
utmost expectations. I am glad of this, both
because the picture is yours, and as it is an
additional promise of what he is to do hereafter.
No doubt you will read him my Orpheus of
Oxford Street, which I think he will like. In a
day or two I mean to send a sheet of my intended
volume to the press ; it would give me pleasure
to desire the printer to send you the sheets as
they are struck off if you could have them free
of expense. There is no forming a true estimate
of a volume of small poems by reading them all
together ; one stands in the way of the other.
They must either be read a few at once, or the
book must remain some time by one, before a
judgment can be made of the quantity of thought
and feeling and imagery it contains, and what
(and what variety of) moods of mind it can either
impart or is suited to.

My sister is writing to Lady Beaumont, and

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

173

will tell her how comfortable we are here, and
everything relating thereto. Alas ! we have had
no tidings of Coleridge — a certain proof that he
continues to be very unhappy. Farewell, my
dear friend. — Most faithfully and affectionately
yours, Wm. Wordsworth.

174

( OLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.

Coleorton, Friday, 14?th November.1
My dear Friend, — We like the place more and
more every day, for every day we find fresh
comfort in having a roomy house. The sitting-
room, where by the fireside we have seen some
glorious sunsets, we far more than like — we
already love it. These sunsets are a gift of our
new residence, for shut up as we are among the
mountains in our small deep valley, we have but
a glimpse of the glory of the evening through
one gap called the Dunmail Gap, the inverted
arch which you pass through in going to Keswick.
On Wednesday evening my brother and I walked
backwards and forwards under the trees near the
hall just after the sun was gone down, and we
felt as if we were admitted to a new delight.
From the horizon's edge to a great height the
sky was covered with rosy clouds, and I cannot
conceive anything more beautiful and glorious
and solemn than this light seen through the
trees, and the majestic trees themselves; and

l8o6] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

175

afterwards, when we went lower down, and had
the church spire and your new house backed by
the west, they had a very fine effect. We con-
tinued to walk till the sky was gloomy all over,
and two lights (we supposed from coal-pits) on
the hill opposite to the hall, where the grove
stands whither you want to decoy the rooks,
were left to shine with full effect, and they
looked very wild. We have not been much
further than your grounds (except to Ashby,
whither we have gone several times on business).
The roads, if you do not go very far from home,
are by no means so bad as I expected ; for
instance, the Ashby road, till you come to the
turnpike, is very well ; afterwards, to be sure, it is
shocking, and I have no doubt the Ashby people
think we are marvellous creatures to have the
courage to wade through it. In consequence of
your hint my sister and I walked to the Hospital
the next day, and the day after we sent John to
school ; and a proud scholar he is. He goes with
his dinner in a bag slung over his shoulder, and
a little bottle of milk in his greatcoat pocket,
and never man was fuller of pride and self-
importance. The poor old schoolmistress has
been very ill, and is not yet able to attend to

176

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

the children herself ; but her daughter said she
now wanted nothing but good nursing. We saw
her in bed, and were pleased to observe how
clean and comfortable all things were about her.
She had had an apothecary to attend her. She
appeared to be very feeble ; but she told us that
she expected to be able to go into the school
again in a day or two. We shall call to see her
this afternoon. Peggy goes with John in the
mornings, and Tom brings him home in the
afternoon. Mr. Craig has planted honeysuckles
beside the pillars at the door. I wish they may
thrive, for in a few years the spot will be very
beautiful if they do. It makes a charming walk,
and I think the effect of the pillars when you
are under the shed will be very elegant. We
have requested Mr. Craig to plant some of the
clematis or traveller's joy, a plant which is very
beautiful, especially by moonlight in winter,
grows rapidly, and makes a delicious bower.
What above all things I delight in is the piece
of ground you have chosen for your winter
garden ; the hillocks and slopes, and the hollow
shape of the whole, will make it a perfect wilder-
ness when the trees get up. The wall at the
end which supports the bank is very handsome, —

1806] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

177

that is, it will be so when it is overgrown ; but I
hope you will not wall the garden all round.
The natural shelving earthy fence which it has
at present might be made perfectly beautiful, as
I should think. I recognised the old steps which
are in Sir George's drawing, and oh ! how very
pretty that wych-elm cottage might be made ;
but go it must, that I see, being so very near
your house ; yet I will and must mourn for it.
My sister and I are very fond of the parsonage-
house, and should like to live there, as we said
to each other one morning when we were walk-
ing beside it — if we could but persuade William
to take orders ; and he being a very e delightful
creature' you know, it would suit you, and we
should all be suited. My brother works very
hard at his poems, preparing them for the press.
Miss Hutchinson is the transcriber. She also
orders dinner, and attends to the kitchen ; so that
the labour being so divided we have all plenty
of leisure. ... I do not understand anything
by that line of Michael Angelo but this, that he
— seeing in the expression and light of her eye
so much of the divine nature, that is, receiving
from thence such an assurance of the divine
nature being in her — felt therefrom a more

178

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

confirmed belief or sentiment or sensation of the
divinity of his own, and was thereby purified.
If I write more I shall have no room for the
poem. God bless you, my good dear Lady Beau-
mont ! Remember me kindly to Sir George.

STAR-GAZERS.

What crowd is this ? what have we here ! we

must not pass it by ;
A Telescope upon its frame^ and pointed to the

sky:

Long is it as a Barber s Pole, or mast of little Boat,
Some little pleasure-skiff, that doth on Thames's
waters float.

The Show-man chooses well his place, 'tis Leices-
ter's busy Square ;

And he 's as happy in his night, for the heavens
are blue and fair ;

Calm, tho' impatient, are the crowd ; each is
ready with the fee,

And envies him that 's looking ; — what an insight
must it be !

1806] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH. 179

Now, showman ! Where can lie the cause ? shall

thy implement have blame ?
A Boaster that, when he is tried, fails and is put

to shame ?

Or is it good as others are, and be their eyes in
fault ?

Their eyes, or minds ? or finally, is this re-
splendent vault ?

Is nothing of that radiant pomp so good as we
have here ?

Or gives a thing but small delight that never

can be dear ?
The silver moon, with all her vales, and hills of

mightiest fame,
Do they betray us when they 're seen ? and are

they but a name ?

Or is it rather that conceit rapacious is and
strong ?

And bounty never yields so much but it seems to

do her wrong ?
Or is it that when human souls a journey long

have had,

And are return d into themselves, they cannot
but be sad ?

180

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

Or does some deep and earnest thought the

blissful mind employ
Of him who gazes, or has gazed, a grave and

steady joy,

That doth reject all show of pride, admits no

outward sign,
Because not of this noisy world, but silent and

divine ?

Or is it — last unwelcome thought ! — that these

spectators rude,
Poor in estate, of manners base, men of the

multitude,

Have souls which never yet have risen, and

therefore prostrate lie,
Not to be lifted up at once to power and

majesty ?

Whate'er the cause, 'tis sure that they who pry
and pore

Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy

than before ;
One after one they take their turns, nor have I

one espied

That does not slackly go away as if dissatisfied.

l8o6] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

181

We shall be anxious to know how you find
Lady Beaumont's health. I have kept back
from speaking of Coleridge, for what can I say ?
We have had no letter, though we have written
again. You shall hear of it when he writes
to us.

1 The year must be 1806.

182

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.1

16th November, 8 o'clock, Sunday evening.
My dear Friend, — I write to you from the
nursery fireside, and a very warm and comfort-
able spot it is ; and seems more quiet for the
gentle regular breathing of the two little boys,
who are in bed at the other end of the room.
I do not know what to say to you about poor
Coleridge. We have had four letters from him,
and in all he speaks with the same steadiness
of his resolution to separate from Mrs. C, and
she has fully agreed to it, and consented that
he should take Hartley and Derwent, and super-
intend their education, she being allowed to
have them at the holidays. I say she has
agreed to the separation, but in a letter which
we have received to-night he tells us that she
breaks out into outrageous passions, and urges
continually that one argument (in fact the only
one which has the least effect upon her mind),
that this person, and that person, and every-
body will talk. He would have been with

l8o6] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

183

us here before this time but for the chance
of giving H. and D. the hooping-cough, and,
on that account, he is miserably perplexed,
for he has no other place to carry them to
where they would be under the care of females
on whom he could rely ; and if he were to
leave them with her, he must be obliged to
return to fetch them, for she would not give
them up to any one but him ; and if he leaves
them, and has to return, the worst part of the
business will be undone, and he cannot possibly
regain his tranquillity. As he says himself : e If
I go away without them I am a bird who has
struggled himself from off a bird-lime twTig,
and then finds a string round his leg pulling
him back.' My brother has written to advise
him to bring the boys to us. . . . He has
also given several other reasons which I need
not detail. There is one sentence in one
of C.'s letters which has distressed us very
much, and indeed all is distressing; but it is
of no use to enter into particulars. He says,
after speaking of the weakness of his mind
during the struggle : c I cannot, therefore, deny
that I both have suffered, and am suffering
hourly, to the great injury of my health, which

184

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

at times alarms me as dropsical/ This con-
firms what we had observed in his appearance ;
but I trust these bad symptoms will wear away
when he is restored to quiet, and settled in
some employment. It is his intention to in-
struct the boys himself one part of the day,
and the other part to send them to school to
learn writing and arithmetic, and to have the
advantage of being with children of their own
age. I hope my brother's letter will make
him determine to come with them here, and
that I shall have to tell you that they are here
before the end of this week.

My brother has been frequently with Mr.
Gray since he received your letter, and has
spoken to him about planting thickets in the
grove. He has also frequently paced over and
studied the winter garden, and laid some plans ;
but I will not anticipate what he has to say,
for he intends writing to you himself when
he has fully settled in his own mind what seems
to him the best. We have had workmen near
the house planting the other part of the en-
closed ground. All they have done is already
an improvement. The place looks the better even
for the dead fence, it gives it a snug appearance ;

1806] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

185

and in a very few years there will be a nice
sheltered walk. Mr. Gray is making the new
path. He consulted my brother respecting the
direction it should take.

You were very kind in transcribing the pas-
sage from Pascal. I entirely go along with
you in your sentiments of pleasure and admira-
tion. It is a beautiful passage indeed — very
beautiful ; but there is always a something
wanting to the fulness of my satisfaction in
the expression of all elevated sentiments in the
French language ; and I cannot but think, simple
as the conception is, and suitable as is the ex-
pression, that if Pascal had been an Englishman
having the same exalted spirit of piety and
the same genius, and had written in English,
there would have been more of dignity in the
language of the sentences you have quoted,
and they would have been more impressive.
There is a richness and strength in the lan-
guage of our own great writers that I could
never perceive in the French; but I have not
read much in French, except poetry and com-
mon light reading such as everybody reads, so
I have little right to suppose myself a judge.

William has written two other poems, which

186 COLEORTON LETTERS. [NOV.

you will see when they are printed. He com-
poses frequently in the grove, and Mr. Gray
is going to put him up a bench under the
hollies. We have not yet received a sheet
from the printer. We have had no evening
walks lately, the weather has been so stormy.
On Saturday fortnight we had a terrible wind,
which blew down a wind -mill on the moor.
William and I went to Grace Dieu last week.
We were enchanted with the little valley, and
its rocks, and the rocks of Charnwood upon
the hill, on which we rested for a long time.
Adieu, my dear friend. Accept the best wishes
and most affectionate remembrance of all our
family. — Yours ever,

Dorothy Wordsworth.

1 The postmark is Dec. 10, 1806. — Ed.

[8o6]

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH. 187

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.1

Friday evening.
My dear Friend, — We are in expectation every
moment of poor Coleridge and his son Hartley.
They were to leave Kendal on Wednesday., and
if they had come as quickly as my brother and
Miss H., they would have been here last night.
C. says that Mrs. Coleridge intends removing
southward in the spring, and is to meet him in
London with Derwent, who till that time is to
stay with her. . . . He writes calmly and in better
spirits. Mrs. C. had been outrageous ; but for the
last two or three days she had become more quiet,
and appeared to be tolerably reconciled to his
arrangements. I had a letter from her last
week — a strange letter ! She wrote just as if
all things were going on as usual, and we knew
nothing of the intentions of Coleridge. She
gives but a very gloomy account of Coleridge's
health, but this in her old way, without the
least feeling or sense of his sufferings. I do
think, indeed, that the state of his health

188

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

will absolutely prevent him from lecturing. It
is a sad pity that he did not formally decline
accepting the proposal, as I believe his heart
was never in it, and nothing but the dreamy
and miserable state of his mind (which pre-
vented him from doing anything) kept him from
saying that he would not lecture. I trust, gloomy
as his own apprehensions are (for he talks of
a dropsy in the chest), that when he is more
tranquil a tolerable state of health will return.
As to drinking brandy, I hope he has already
given over that practice ; but here, I think, he
will be tolerably safe, for we shall not have
any to set before him, and we should be very
loath to comply with his request if he were
to ask for it. There may be some danger in
the strong beer, which he used formerly to like,
but I think, if he is not inclined to manage
himself, we can manage him, and he will take
no harm, while he has not the temptations which
variety of company leads him into of taking
stimulants to keep him in spirits while he is
talking.

My brother, who is writing a long letter
to you himself, which you will probably receive
the post after this, has had his thoughts full

i8o6]

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

189

of the winter garden, as you will see. His
poetical labours have been at a stand for more
than a week. We have had boisterous and
very rainy weather, which has kept us chiefly
in the house ; but yesterday the air was very
mild, and to-day the sun shone from nine o'clock
in the morning till he set in glory in the west.
Then we had the moon, and William and I
walked for more than an hour and a half in
the grove. The hall looks exceedingly well
by moonlight from the walk near the fish-
pond (which, by the by, adds greatly to the
effect of it). The turrets looked very beautiful
to-night ; great part of the front was in shade,
and all the end of the house enlightened. There
is one improvement to this house which seems
to be wanted — a spout along the edge of the
penthouse or shed ; the rain-drops will other-
wise entirely destroy the border of tuft and
other flowers ; besides, in very rainy weather the
walk is often even plashy ; and also — another
reason for placing a spout — soft water (which
might be caught by setting a tub under the
spout) is very much needed for household pur-
poses, the pump water being, though excellent,
very hard. I have often intended to mention

190

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[NOV.

to you, but have forgotten it when I wrote,
that in reading my journal of our tour in Scot-
land, you must bear in mind that it is only
recollections of the tour, therefore do not wonder
if you or Sir George should detect some in-
accuracies, often misspelt and even miscalled,
for I never looked into a book, and only bore
in mind my own remembrance of the sounds
as they were pronounced to us. Add to this,
that the last part was written nearly two years
after we made the journey, and I took no notes.
My sister and Miss Hutchinson beg to be afFec-
• tionately remembered to you. — Believe me ever,
my dear Lady Beaumont, your grateful and
sincere friend, Dorothy Wordsworth.

Saturday morning. — No Coleridge last night,
and it is now twelve o'clock, and he is not
arrived ; therefore we cannot expect him till
the arrival of another coach, and if that be
late, he will probably stay all night at Lough-
borough.

1 The postmark is Dec. 22, 1806. — Ed.

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH. 191

William Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.1

My dear Lady Beaumont, — There's penman-
ship for you ! I shall not be able to keep it up
to the end in this style, notwithstanding I have
the advantage of writing with one of your steel
pens with which Miss Hutchison has just fur-
nished me. I have a long work to go through,
but first let me tell you that I was highly
gratified by your letter, and I consider the
request that I would undertake the laying out
your winter garden as a great honour. You
kindly desire me not to write, but I cannot enter
upon my office till I have had your opinion on my
intended plan, and solicited the improvement
which your taste and intention, and those of Sir
George, may suggest.

Before I explain my ideas I must entreat
your patience. I promise you I will be as brief
as may be, but, meaning to be minute, I fear I
shall be tiresome. First, then, to begin with the
boundary line. Suppose ourselves standing upon
the terrace above the new-built wall : that, of

192

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[DEC.

course, would be open, and we should look down
from it upon the garden, and, winding round
upon the left bank, I would plant upon the top
of it, in the field, a line of evergreen shrubs
intermingled with cypress, to take place of the
present hedges ; and, behind these, a row of firs,
such as were likely to grow to the most majestic
height. This kind of fence, leaving visible
such parts of the cottages as would have the
best effect (I mean the beautiful one with ivy,
and the other, which is of a very picturesque
form, but very shabby surface), I would continue
all round the garden, so as to give it the greatest
appearance of depth, shelter, and seclusion pos-
sible. This is essential to the feeling of the
place, with which, indeed, I ought to have begun :
and that is of a spot which the winter cannot
touch, which should present no image of chilli-
ness, decay, or desolation, when the face of
Nature everywhere else is cold, decayed, and
desolate. On this account, keeping strictly to the
example of the winter garden in the Spectator,
I should certainly exclude all deciduous trees,
whatever variety and brilliancy of colour their
foliage might give at certain seasons inter-
mingled with the evergreens, because I think a

i8o6]

WORDSWORTH.

193

sufficiency of the same effect may be produced
by other means, which would jar less with what
should never be out of mind, the sentiment of
the place. We will, then, suppose the garden
to be shut up within this double and tall fence
of evergreen shrubs and trees. Do you remem-
ber the lines with which Thomson concludes his
Ode on Solitude ? —

Oh ! let me pierce thy secret cell,
And in thy deep recesses dwell ;
Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill,
When Meditation has her fill,
I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London's spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,
Then shield me in the woods again.

Iii conformity to the spirit of these beautiful lines,
I would make one opening, but scarcely more, in
this boundary fence, which should present the
best view of the most interesting distant object.

Having now done with the double ever-green
fence, we will begin again with the wall ;
and, first, let me say that this wall with its
recesses, buttresses, and towers, I very much
admire. It should be covered here and there
with ivy and pyracanthus (which probably you
know), or any other winter plants that bear

194

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

scarlet berries,, or are rich and luxuriant in their
leaves and manner of growing. From the wall,
going round by the left, the first thing we meet
is a mound of rubbish which should be planted.
Then, before we reach the ivied cottage, we
come to a perpendicular bank or scar ; this should
be planted along the top, in addition to the
double evergreen fence mentioned before, with
ivy, periwinkle, and other beautiful or brilliant
evergreen trailing plants, which should hang
down and leave the earth visible in different
places. From the sides of the bank also might
start juniper and yew, and it might be sprinkled
over with primroses. Coming to the second
cottage, this — if not entirely taken away — should
be repaired, so as to have nothing of a patchy
and worn-out appearance, as it has at present,
and planted with ivy ; this, and the shrubs and
trees, hereafter to conceal so much of the naked
wall, as almost to leave it doubtful whether it be
a cottage or not. I do not think that these two
cottages would in an unwelcome manner break
in upon the feeling of seclusion, if no window
looking directly upon the garden be allowed.
This second cottage is certainly not necessary,
and if it were not here nobody would wish for

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195

it; but its irregular and picturesque form, its
tall chimney in particular, plead strongly with
me for its being retained. I scarcely ever saw a
building of its size which would show off ivy to
greater advantage. If retained — which with a
view to what it is to become I should certainly
advise, — it ought to be repaired, and made as
little unsightly in its surface as possible, till the
trailing plants shall have overspread it. At first
I was for taking this cottage away, as it is in such
ruinous plight, but now I cannot reconcile myself
to the thought ; — I have such a beautiful image
in my mind of what it would be as a supporter
to a grove of ivy, anywhere beautiful, but parti-
cularly so in a winter garden; therefore let it
stand.

Following the fence round, we come to the
remains of the little quarry (for such I suppose
the excavation to be, nearly under the wych-elm
cottage) ; I would scratch the bank here, so as to
lay bare more of the sand rock, and that in as
bold a way as could be done. This rock, or scar,
like the one before mentioned, I would adorn
with trailing plants, and juniper, box, and yew-
tree, where a very scanty growth would soon
show itself. The next part of the fence we come

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COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

to in its present state is an unsightly corner,
where is an old ugly wall (made still uglier with
nettles and rubbish) which has been built to
prevent the bank from falling in. Here I would
plant, to cover this wall, a hedge of hollies, or
some other evergreen, which should not be
suffered to grow wildly, but be cropped, making
a wall of verdure to ascend up to the roots of
the fir-trees that are to be planted upon the top
of the bank. This form of boundary would here
revive the artificial character of the place in a
pleasing way, preparing for a return to the new
stone wall ; the parts of the whole boundary thus,
as you will perceive, either melting into each
other quietly, or forming spirited contrasts. I must
however not forget here that there is a space of
boundary between this unsightly corner (where I
would have the holly hedge) and the new stone
wall ; and this space would be diversified, first by
the steps which now descend into the garden,
and next, and most beautifully, by a conception
which I have of bringing the water — which I am
told may be done without much expense — and
letting it trickle down the bank about the roots
of the wych elm, so as to make, if not a water-
fall (there might not be enough for that), at least

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197

a dripping of water, round which might gather
and flourish some of those vivid masses of water-
plants, a refreshing and beautiful sight in the
dead time of the year, and which, when cased in
ice, form one of the most enchanting appearances
that are peculiar to winter.

In order to be clear I wish to be methodical,
at the risk, as I forewarned you, of being tedious.
We will therefore begin with the wall once more.
This, as the most artificial, ought to be the most
splendid and ornamental part of the garden ; and
here I would have, betwixt the path and the
wall, a border edged with boxwood, to receive
the earliest and latest flowers. Within and close
to the edging of boxwood, I would first plant a
row of snowdrops, and behind that a row of
crocus ; these would succeed each other. Close
under the wall I would have a row, or fringe, of
white lilies, and in front of this another of
daffodils ; these also would succeed each other,
the daffodils coming first ; the middle part of the
border, which must be of good width, to be richly
tufted, or bedded over with hepatica, jonquils,
hyacinths, polyanthuses, auriculas, mezereon, and
other spring flowers, and shrubs that blossom
early ; and, for the autumn, Michaelmas-daisy,

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COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

winter - cherry, china-asters, Michaelmas and
Christmas rose, and many other shrubs and
flowers. I mentioned before what I would wish
to have done with the wall itself. The path of
which I have been speaking should wind round
the garden mostly near the boundary line, which
would in general be seen or felt as has been
described ; but not always, for in some places,
particularly near the high-road, it would be kept
out of sight, so that the imagination might have
room to play. It might perhaps with propriety
lead along a second border under the clipped
holly hedge ; everywhere else it should only be
accompanied by wild-flowers.

We have done with the circumference ; now
for the interior, which I would diversify in the
following manner. And to begin, as before, with
the wall : this fronts nearly south, and a con-
siderable space before it ought to be open to the
sun, forming a glade, enclosed on the north side
by the wall ; on the east, by a ridge of rubbish to
be planted with shrubs, trees, and flowers ; on the
west by another little long hillock, or ridge of the
same kind ; and on the south by a line of ever-
green shrubs, to run from the southern extremi-
ties of the ridges, and to be broken by one or two

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199

trees of the cypress kind, which would spire up
without excluding the sun from the glade. This
I should call the first compartment of the garden,
to be characterised by ornament of architecture
as in the wall, by showiness and splendour of
colours in the flowers (which would be chiefly
garden flowers), and in the choice of the shrubs.
In this glade, — if the plan of bringing the water
should not be found impracticable, or too expen-
sive,— I would have a stone fountain of simple
structure to throw out its stream or even thread
of water ; the stone-work would accord with the
wall, and the sparkling water would be in har-
mony with the bright hues of the flowers and
blossoms, and would form a lively contrast to the
sober colours of the evergreens, while the murmur
in a district where the sound of water (if we
except the little trickling that is to be under the
wych elm) is nowhere else heard, could not but
be soothing and delightful. Shall I venture to
say here, by the by, that I am old-fashioned
enough to like in certain places even jets d'eau ;
I do not mean merely in towns, and among
buildings, where I think they always are pleas-
ing, but also among rural scenes where water is
scarce. They certainly make a great show out of

200

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

a little substance,, and the diamond drops of light
which they scatter round them, and the halos
and rainbows which the misty vapour shows in
sunshine,, and the dewy freshness which it seems
to spread through the air, are all great recom-
mendations of them to me ; so much so, that, for
myself, I should not be ashamed of seeing one
here, if a fountain, which is a thing of more
simplicity and dignity, would not answer every
important purpose, and be quite unobjectionable.
If we had a living stream bustling through rocks,
as at Grace Dieu, and could decoy it among our
evergreens, I should not think either of fountain
or jets d'eau ; but, alas ! Coleorton is in no
favour with the Naiads.

The next compartment (if you look at the
accompanying plan you will clearly understand
me) is to be a glade unelaborate and simple,
surrounded with evergreens, and a few scattered
in the middle. N.B. — The former glade to be
entirely open with the fountain ; and of this
second glade so much of the ancient cottage as
could be shown with effect would be the presid-
ing image. No border or garden flowers here,
but wild -flowers to be scattered everywhere.
Then (still look at the plan) we come to a dark

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WORDSWORTH.

201

thicket or grove, the path winding through it,
under the other cottage ; then the path crosses
the outlet where the door leads into the high-
road, which door ought to be entirely concealed,
and led to under a thick arch of evergreen.

Proceeding with the paths,, we cross the end
of a long alley, of which I shall speak afterwards.
We then are brought to a small glade or open
space, belted round with evergreens^ quite un-
varied and secluded. In this little glade should
be a basin of water inhabited by two gold or
silver fish, if they will live in this climate all the
year in the open air; if not, any others of the
most radiant colours that are more hardy : these
little creatures to be the c genii ' of the pool and
of the place. This spot should be as monotonous
in the colour of the trees as possible. The
enclosure of evergreen,, the sky above, the green
grass floor, and the two mute inhabitants^ the
only images it should present, unless here and
there a solitary wild -flower. From this glade
the path leads on through a few yards of dark
thicket, and we come to the little quarry, and
this (adopting an idea of yours, which I had from
Mr. Craig, and which pleases me much) I should
fill with a pool of water that would reflect beauti-

202

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

fully the rocks with their hanging plants, the
evergreens upon the top, and, shooting deeper
than all, the naked spire of the church. The
path would wind along on one side of the pool
under the ridge of rubbish, the slope of which
should be bare and grassy (if it will not in its
present state grow smooth grass it should be
seeded for that purpose). It should be planted
only on the top, and with trees that would grow
to the greatest height, in order to give the recess
as much depth as possible.

You would appear to be shut up within this
bottom, till, turning with the path round a
rocky projection of the mound of rubbish, you
are fronted by a flight of steps, not before visible,
which will be made to bring you out of the
quarry close under the clipt holly hedge spoken
of before. Here you open into a large glade,
one side formed by the trees on the mound of
rubbish, the other by the holly hedge, and still
further by those other steps near the wych-elm
cottage, which now lead down into the garden ;
these steps, not visible till you come at them, and
still further on by the principal object in the
glade, the waterfall, for so I will call it, from
the root of the wych elm.

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WORDSWORTH.

203

Having passed through this glade, you go on
a few steps through a thicket, and before you
come to the new-built wall you cross the other
end of the alley spoken of before, — this alley to
run down from the boundary path the whole
length of the garden in this part, as you will see
in the plan. The alley to be quite straight, the
ground perfectly level, shaded with evergreens ;
laurels I think the best, as they grow tall and so
much faster than any other evergreen I know ;
the floor not gravelled, but green, which, when
the trees overshadow the walk, would become
mossy, so that the whole would be still, unvaried,
and cloistral, soothing and not stirring the mind,
or tempting it out of itself. The upper end
of this alley should appear to be closed in by
trees, the lower to be terminated by a rising
bank of green turf which would catch the light,
and present a cheerful image of sunshine ; as it
would always appear to do, whether the sun
shone or not, to a person walking in the alley
when the vista shall have become a complete
shade.

Out of this alley, towards the middle of it, on
the left side, should be a small blind path lead-
ing to a bower, such as you will find described in

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COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

the beginning of Chaucer's poem of The Flower
and the Leaf, and also in the beginning of the
Assembly of Ladies. This little parlour of ver-
dure should be paved with different-coloured
pebbles, chiefly white, which are to be found in
great plenty sprinkling the sandy roads of this
country; these wrought into a careless mosaic
would contrast livelily, if the white were pre-
dominant, with the evergreen walls and ceiling of
this apartment. All around should be a mossed
seat, and a small stone table in the midst. I am
at a loss what trees to choose for this bower.
Hollies (which would be clipped in the inside,
so that the prickles would be no annoyance) I
should like best, but they grow so slowly.

I have now mentioned everything of conse-
quence. You will see by the plan that there were
several spaces to be covered with evergreens,
where there might or might not be bypaths, as
you should like — one by way of specimen I have
chalked out (see the plan) along the foot of one of
the ridges of rubbish. These intermediate planta-
tions, when they get up, will entirely break any
unpleasing formality, which the alley and bower,
or any other parts of the garden, might otherwise
give to it, when looked at from above. If you add

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WORDSWORTH.

205

to these features or passages a seat in some sunny
spot, or perhaps a small shed or alcove, you have
introduced as much variety within the compass
of an acre as my fancy is capable of suggesting.

I had some thoughts that it might be possible
to scoop out of the sandy rock a small cell or
cavern on the stony side of the quarry, but the
rock there is not continuous or firm enough.
That part of the rock on which the decayed
cottage stands, as it is much firmer, might perhaps
admit of something of this kind with good effect.
Thus laid out, the winter garden would want no
variety of colouring beyond what the flowers and
blossoms of many of the shrubs, such as mezereon
and laurustinus, and the scarlet berries of the
evergreen trees, and the various shades of green
in their foliage would give. The place is to be
consecrated to Winter, and I have only spoken of
it in that point of view, confining myself to the
time when the deciduous trees are not in leaf.
But it would also be a delightful retreat from the
summer sun. We think, in this climate only, of
evergreens as a shelter from the cold, but they
are chiefly natives of hot climates, and abound
most there. The woods of Africa are full of
them.

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COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

A word before I conclude : I have only given
the garden two settled inhabitants, the pair of
fishes in the pool ; but, in the early spring, bees
— much more attended to in the stillness of that
season — would murmur round the flowers and
blossoms, and all the winter long it would be
enlivened by birds, which would resort thither
for covert. We never pass in our evening walk
the cluster of holly bushes, under one of which
Mr. Craig has placed my seat, but we unsettle a
number of small birds which have taken shelter
there for the night. The whole bush seems in a
flutter with them, while they are getting out of
it. Mentioning holly, I must defend Mr. Craig
for having fallen in with my proposal of placing
me a seat there. Since Burns' s time the holly has
been a poetical tree as well as the laurel. His
Muse in the poem of The Vision takes leave of
him in this manner —

1 And wear thou this ' — she solemn said,
And bound the Holly round my head :
The polish'd leaves, and berries red,

Did rustling play ;
And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.

With respect to trees, shrubs, and flowers, Mr.
Craig has a considerable collection. You might

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WORDSWORTH.

207

add to these by your suggestions, and it might
be worth your while for this purpose to take the
trouble of visiting some large nursery garden in
the neighbourhood of London, and to consult
some of your friends.

I am sensible that I have written a very pretty
romance in this letter, and when I look at the
ground in its present state, and think of what it
must continue to be for some years, I am afraid
that you will call me an enthusiast and a visionary.
I am willing to submit to this, as I am seriously
convinced that if proper pains were taken to
select healthy and vigorous plants, and to forward
their growth, less than six years would transform
. . . 2 to something that might be looked at
with ... 2 fifty would make it a paradise. O
that I could convert my little Dorothy into a
fairy to realise the whole in half a day !

As to the thickets under the forest trees in
the walks about the Hall, I have pressed Mr.
Craig, and his wishes are good ; but lately he has
seemed fully occupied : and, to speak the truth,
as he has very cheerfully given up the winter
garden to my control, I do not like to inter-
meddle much with the other. It looks like
taking the whole of the intellectual part from

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COLEORTON LETTERS.

[dec.

him, which would dispirit him, and be both
unjust and impolitic, as he has a good taste, and
seems a truly respectable man. He has already,
in a general way, had my opinion, which I will
continue at all favourable opportunities to remind
him of. He has constructed the new walk with
judgment, and a sweet spot it is. There are a
few hollies here which have an excellent effect ;
I wish almost the whole hedge to be made of
them, as they would be comfortable in winter,
excluding the field, which is cold, and of no
beauty ; and in summer, by being intermingled
with wild roses, and hung with honeysuckles,
they would be rich and delightful. I never saw
so beautiful a shrub as one tall holly which we
had near a house we occupied in Somersetshire ;
it was attired with woodbine, and upon the very
top of the topmost bough that c looked out at
the sky' was one large honeysuckle flower, like
a star, crowning the whole. Few of the more
minute rural appearances please me more than
these, of one shrub or flower lending its orna-
ments to another. There is a pretty instance of
this kind now to be seen near Mr. Craig's new
walk — a bramble which has furnished a wild rose
with its green leaves, while the rose in turn

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WORDSWORTH.

209

with its red hips has to the utmost of its power
embellished the bramble. Mr. Grahame in his
Birds of Scotland has an exquisite passage upon
this subject, with which I will conclude —

The hawthorn there,
With moss and lichens grey, dies of old age.
Up to the upmost branches climbs the rose
And mingles with the fading blooms of May,
While round the brier the honeysuckle wreaths
Entwine, and with their sweet perfume embalm
The dying rose.

My dear Lady Beaumont, I have now written
you the longest letter I ever wrote in my life ;
Heaven forbid that I should often draw so largely
upon the patience of my friends. — Farewell, and
may this and all our . . . W. W.

1 Evidently Dec. 1806.— Ed.

2 The MS. is here defective. — Ed.

210 COLEORTON LETTERS. [DEC.

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.1

Coleridge and his son Hartley arrived on
Sunday afternoon. My dear Lady Beaumont,
the pleasure of welcoming him to your house
mingled with our joy, and I think I never was
more happy in my life than when we had had him
an hour by the fireside : for his looks were much
more like his own old self, and though we only
talked of common things, and of our friends, we
perceived that he was contented in his mind,
and had settled things at home to his satisfac-
tion. He has been tolerably well and cheerful
ever since, and has begun with his books.
Hartley, poor boy ! is very happy, and looks un-
commonly well ; but we are afraid of the hooping-
cough, for there is now no doubt that the cough
which we have is the hooping-cough. Thomas
is better than when I wrote on Saturday. I
long to know your opinion and Sir George's of
my brother's plan of the winter garden. (Cole-
ridge (as we females are also) is much delighted

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DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

211

with it, only he doubts about the fountain, and
he thinks it is possible that an intermingling of

PLAN OF THE WINTER GARDEN.

birch-trees somewhere, on account oi the rich-
ness of the colour of the naked twigs in winter,

212

COLEORTON LETTERS. [DEC. 1806

might be an advantage ; I may add also from
myself, that we have often stood for half an hour
together at Grasmere on a still morning to look
at the rain-drops or hoar-frost glittering in sun-
shine upon the birch twigs; the purple colour
and the sparkling drops produce a most enchant-
ing effect. All our family except the three
children (for Dorothy is of their party) are gone
to Grace Dieu. The fineness of the morning
tempted them, and I hope they will not be much
fatigued as they will take a much shorter road
than my brother and I had the luck to find.
God bless you, my kind good friend. We shall
drink a health to you on Christmas Day. You
may remember that it is my birthday ; but in my
inner heart it is never a day of jollity. — Believe
me, ever yours, D. Wordsworth.

Coleorton, Tuesday 23d.
P.S. — Coleridge intended writing to you or
Sir George to-day, or to both, and did not go to
Grace Dieu.

1 Postmark, Dec. 25, 1806.

JAN. 1807]

COLERIDGE.

213

Coleridge's Poem to Wordsworth, as given in
a Letter from him to Sir George Beau-
mont in January 1807.

To William Wordsworth. Composed for the greater
part on the same night after the finishing of his recita-
tion of the Poem in thirteen Books, on the Growth of
his own Mind.

O Friend ! O Teacher ! God's great gift to me !
Into my heart have I received that lay
More than historic, that prophetic lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
Of the foundations and the building up
Of thy own spirit thou hast loved to tell
What may be told, by words revealable :
With heavenly breathings, like the secret soul
Of vernal growth, oft quickening in the heart,
Thoughts that obey no mastery of words,
Pure self-beholdings ! theme as hard as high,
Of smiles spontaneous and mysterious fear,
The first-born they of Reason and twin birth !
Of tides obedient to external force,
And currents self-determined, as might seem,
Or by some inner power ! of moments awful,

214

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JAN.

Now in thy hidden life, and now abroad.
When power stream' d from thee, and thy soul
received

The light reflected, as a light bestow' d !
Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblaean murmurs of poetic thought,
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens
Native or outland, lakes and famous hills ;
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
Were rising ; or by secret mountain streams,
The guides and the companions of thy way !
Of more than Fancy — of the social sense
Distending, and of man beloved as man,
Where France in all her towns lay vibrating,
Even as a bark becalm' d on sultry seas
Quivers beneath the voice from Heaven, the burst
Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud
Is visible, or shadow on the main !
For thou wert there, thy own brows garlanded,
Amid the tremor of a realm aglow !
Amid a mighty nation jubilant !
When from the general heart of human kind
Hope sprang forth, like an armed deity !
Of that dear hope, afflicted and struck down,
So summon' d homeward ; thenceforth calm and
sure,

COLERIDGE.

215

As from the watch-tower of man's absolute self,

With light unwaning on her eyes, to look

Far on — herself a glory to behold.

The Angel of the Vision ! Then (last strain)

Of duty, chosen laws controlling choice,

Action and joy ! an Orphic tale indeed,

A tale divine of high and passionate thoughts,

To their own music chanted !

O great Bard !
Ere yet the last strain dying awed the air,
With steadfast eyes I saw thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence : for they, both power and act,
Are permanent, and time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred roll than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linked song of truth, —
Of truth profound, a sweet continuous song
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes !
Dear shall it be to every human heart,
To me how more than dearest ! me, on whom
Comfort from thee, and utterance of thy love,
Came with such heights and depths of harmony,

216

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JAN.

Such sense of wings uplifting, that its might
Scatter' d and quell'd me, till my thoughts
became

A bodily tumult ; and thy faithful hopes,
Thy hopes of me, dear friend ! by me unfelt !
Were troublous to me, almost as a voice,
Familiar once, and more than musical ;
As a dear woman's voice to one cast forth,
A wanderer with a worn-out heart forlorn,
'Mid strangers pining with untended wounds.
O friend ! too well thou know'st, of what sad
years

The long suppression had benumb' d my soul,
That, even as life returns upon the drown'd,
The unusual joy awoke a throng of pains-
Keen pangs of Love, awakening, as a babe,
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart !
And fears self-will'd, that shunn'd the eye of
hope,

And hope that scarce would know itself from
fear ;

Sense of past youth, and manhood come in
vain,

And genius given, and knowledge won in
vain ;

And all, which I had cull'd in wood- walks wild.

COLERIDGE.

217

And all which patient toil had rear'd, and all
Commune with thee had open d out — but flowers
Strew'd on my corse, and borne upon my bier,
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave !

That way no more ! and ill beseems it me,
Who came a welcomer, in herald's guise,
Singing of glory and futurity,
To wander back on such unhealthful road
Plucking the poisons of self-harm ! and ill
Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths
Strew'd before thy advancing ! Thou too, Friend !
Impair thou not the memory of that hour
Of thy communion with my nobler mind
By pity or grief, already felt too long !
Nor let my words import more blame than needs.
The tumult rose and ceased : for peace is nigh
Where wisdom's voice has found a listening
heart.

Amid the howl of more than wintry storms
The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours,
Already on the wing !

Eve following Eve,
Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of
home

Is sweetest ! moments, for their own sake hail'd,

218

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JAN.

And more desired, more precious for thy song !
In silence listening, like a devout child,
My soul lay passive ; by the various strain
Driven as in surges now, beneath the stars,
With momentary 1 stars of her own birth,
Fair constellated foam, still darting off
Into the darkness : now a tranquil sea,
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.
And when — O Friend ! my comforter ! my
guide !

Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength !

Thy long-sustained song finally closed,

And thy deep voice had ceased — yet thou thyself

Wert still before mine eyes, and round us both

That happy vision of beloved faces—

(All whom, I deepliest love — in one room all !)

Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close,

I sate, my being blended in one thought,

(Thought was it ? or aspiration ? or resolve ?)

Absorb' d ; yet hanging still upon the sound —

And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.

S. T. Coleridge.

Jany. 1807.

1 Annex, as an illustrative note, the descriptive passage in
Latyrane's first letter, 1 The Friend,' p. 220, 1. 13, ' A beautiful
white cloud of foam,' etc.

1807] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.

219

Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont; sent
from Coleorton.

Saturday Moiming.1

My dear Friend, — We should have been very
unjust to you if we had not felt ourselves as free
as before. We were only induced to mention
the circumstance that, in case any complaints
should be made to you, you might be prepared
to meet these with a perfect knowledge of the
state of the case as far as we were concerned.
And I must take this opportunity of repeating
again that we are as perfectly at home as ever
we were in our lives, and have never once suffered
from that sense of difference or any of those little
wants which you speak of.

We use all that you have left for us with free-
dom exactly as if it were our own, only, believe
me, with more pleasure for your sakes. It is a
most delightful morning. My brother and sister
are gone to the winter garden. He visits the
workmen generally twice in the day, and one of

220

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JAN.

us accompanies him ; and when it is pleasant we
afterwards walk in the grove ; hundreds and
hundreds of times have we paced from one end
of that walk to the other. When the air is
calm we take the whole of the walk ; but in
windy weather we stop before we come to the
pond. The seat under the hollies is a great
comfort to us.

My brother makes no complaints of Mr. Craig ;
he is very willing to give his opinion respecting
the manner in which my brother s ideas are to be
executed. I believe he may be inwardly rather
petted ; for he gives no opinion whatever ; and
we had long ago found out that his character was
exactly what you describe — very obstinate, and
somewhat self-conceited ; withal industrious, in-
genious, and faithful. You have misunderstood
me respecting the floor of the alley. It is
simply meant to be green-grown, which it will in
a short time be with short moss after there is any
shade. The moss will not be soft ; it will be
merely a gravel walk mossed over. My brother
wishes the alley not merely to be screened at the
sides but over-arched. Alas ! it will need a long
time for this, however tall and strong the ever-
greens may be when they are planted. Coleridge

1807] DOROTHY WORDSWORTH. 221

is pretty well at present, though ailing at some
time in every day. He does not take such strong
stimulants as he did, but I fear he will never be
able to leave them off entirely. He drinks ale
at night and mid-morning and dinner-time ; and,
according to your desire, we have got some from
Loughborough. Hartley is thoroughly happy.
He spends a great deal of time in Mr. Ward's
room ; sometimes drinks tea and dines with him,
for Mr. Ward takes to him exceedingly. Little
Dorothy also continues to be in high favour with
him.

Adieu, my good friend. — Believe me, ever
affectionately yours, D. Wordsworth.

Excuse haste. — Mr. Bailey is very attentive
and kind to us. I have opened my letter to ask
you if you have Cowper's Translation of Homer.
We do not want it unless you have it, or have a
desire to purchase it. Coleridge says that the
last edition of Bruce' s ( Travels' is a book that
you ought by all means to have. He does not
know the name of the editor, but it is published
by Longman. If you purchase it we should be
very glad to have the reading of it. William and
I were in the inside of the new house yesterday.

222

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[JAN.

The upper rooms are very much nearer being
finished than when we saw them last. William
has thought about the laying out of the piece of
ground before the house, but he has not yet made
up his mind.

1 The postmark is Jan. 27, 1807. — Ed.

i8o7l

WORDSWORTH. 223

W. Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.1

My dear Lady Beaumont, — Lord Redesdale's
letter contains several things that will be of use
to us ; I must however make two or three remarks
upon it. Our garden is to be a winter garden, a
place of comfort and pleasure from the fall of the
leaf to its return — nearly half of the year. Great
part of this time you now perhaps pass in London,
but if you live that probably will not always be
so. Infirmities come on with age, that render
tranquillity every year more welcome and more
necessary. Lord Redesdale seems to have over-
looked this, as far as the greatest part of his letter
applies to a summer garden. His plan of avoid-
ing expense in digging, weeding, and mowing—
particularly the last, — may be carried too far ; a
wilderness of shrubs is a delightful thing as part
of a garden, but only as a part. You must have
open space of lawn, or you lose all the beauty of
outline in the different tufts or islands of shrubs,
and even in many instances in their individual

224

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[FEB.

forms. This lawn cannot be had without mowing.
Digging and weeding ought to be avoided as
much as possible ; and his method is a good one.
With his Lordship, I should wish my strength to
lie in perennial plants and flowers ; but a small
quantity of annuals, such as flower very late, may
with little trouble and great advantage be inter-
spersed among the others. His objection to an
over-arched walk of evergreens, except for sum-
mer, at first appears well founded ; but there is an
oversight in it. In summer you may have a shade
of deciduous trees or plants ; but what are you to
do in April or March, and sometimes even in
February, when the heat and glare of the sun are
often oppressive, notwithstanding the general
cloudiness of our climate ? For my own part, I
can say with truth that in the month of April I
have passed many an hour under the shade of a
green holly, glad to find it in my walk, and
unwilling to quit it because I had not courage to
face the sun. Our winter garden is four parts
out of five planned for the sun. If the alley or
bower, the only parts exclusively designed for
shade, should appear too damp or gloomy, you pass
them by ; but I am sure this will not always be
the case ; and even in those times when it is so,

WORDSWORTH.

225

will not a peep into that gloom make you enjoy
the sunshine the more ? But the alley I designed
for March and April, when there is often a heat
in the sun, and a conflict of sun and wind, which
is both unpleasant and dangerous, and from which
neither walls nor bare leafless trees can protect
you. . . . His Lordship's practical rules about
making walks, propagating plants, etc., seem all
to be excellent, and I much like his plan of a
covered walk of vines — but not for our own win-
ter garden.

I shall read the whole to Mr. Craig. He and
I propose to go to a nursery garden about fourteen
miles off to procure such plants as we are most
likely to want. I would not have them bought
of any great size ; it is a needless expense ; and
surely it will be some pleasure to see them grow
up as from infancy. I never saw any American
plants growing with their bog-earth about them,
and know not whether it has an unsightly ap-
pearance. If not, it certainly would be advisable
to have some of the most brilliant in the first
compartment of the garden — I mean than under
the wall. This is to be the most splendid and
adorned. I have removed the rubbish from under
the wall ; part of it is thrown upon the ridge
p

226

COLEORTON LETTERS.

[fee.

running from the wall on the right, and part
against the straight hedge between the two ivied
cottages. I am afraid we must give up the foun-
tain, as Mr. Craig tells me the quantity of water
will be too small to produce any effect even in
winter. This consideration does not sway with

me much ; but Captain B told me there

would be little or none sometimes in summer, and
upon reflection I think this would be so melan-
choly, and would make such open declaration
of the poverty of the land, that it is better to
abandon the idea. We may easily have enough
for as many pools or basins as we like.

Before I conclude I will add two or three
words in further explanation of my general plan.
The first compartment, as I have said, is to be as
splendid as possible ; to be divided by a fence of
shrubbery twelve feet in width, interspersed with
cypress. My present thought is to have that
side of this fence which looks towards the first
compartment to consist probably altogether of
laurustinus rather than of a variety of plants ;
plants in rows or masses in this way always are
more rich and impressive. The next compart-
ment, of which the ivied cottage is to be
the master object, I meant, in contrast to the

WORDSWORTH.

227

preceding one, to present the most delightful
assemblage of English winter shrubs and flow ers,
mingled with some foreign shrubs, as are so com-
mon in English cottage gardens as to be almost
naturalised. Then comes the second cottage,
which I cannot find in my heart to pull down ;
and I am sure it may be repaired in a manner
that will give no offence. I do not mean the
encircling path to pass through the glade with
the gold and silver fish, but only on one side of
it, so that it may be entered or not at pleasure.
The quarry will be a delightful spot ; but this,
with the English spire that will so feelingly
adorn it, I would have in all its ornaments en-
tirely English. From it we should pass to the
clipped holly or boxwood hedge and its accom-
panying glade, and this should be mixed, and
elaborate in its ornaments : something midway
betwixt the compartment under the wall and
the rest of the garden.

Farewell. — Most affectionately yours and Sir
George's, Wm. Wordsworth.

1 The postmark is Feb. 3, 1807. — Ed.

END OF VOL. I.

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The Dandie Dinmont Terrier: Its History and Char-
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The Earldom of Mar, in Sunshine and in Shade, during

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A Clinical and Experimental Study of the Bladder

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Wild Men and Wild Beasts.

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Burnt Njal.

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A Chat in the Saddle ; or Patroclus and Penelope.

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Veterinary Medicines ; their Actions and Uses.

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Social Life in Former Days ;

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Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen.

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The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel.

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The Doctrine of Election,

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Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.

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Twelve Sketches of Scenery and Antiquities on the

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Guide to the Great North of Scotland Railway.

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Letters and Journals of Mrs. Calderwood of Polton,

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L'Histoire de France.

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The Deepening" of the Spiritual Life.

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Kalendars of Scottish Saints,

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Forestry and Forest Products.

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Fragments of Truth :

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Studies in English History.

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Contents. — The Lollards— Sir John Fal staff— Eatherine of Arragon's First and
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Gifts for Men.

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Sketches, Literary and Theological :

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The Roof of the World :

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Ladies' Old-Fashioned Shoes.

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The Life of our Lord.

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5. The Last Day of our Lord's Passion. Twenty-third Edition.

6. The Forty Days after the Resurrection. Eighth Edition.

The Resurrection of the Dead.

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Mingo, and otter Sketches in Black and White.

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Notes of Caithness Family History.

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Errors in the Use of English.

Illustrated from the Writings of English Authors, from the Fourteenth Century to
our own Time. By the late W. B. Hodgson, LL.D., Professor of Political Economy
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Life and Letters of W. B. Hodgson, LL.D., late Pro-
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Sketches : Personal and Pensive.

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"Quasi Cursores." Portraits of the High Officers and

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PUBLISHED BY DAVID DOUGLAS.

1 1

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Traces in Scotland of Ancient Water Lines, Marine,

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A Sketch of the Life of George Hope of Fenton Barns.

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Tuscan Cities : with Illustrations from Drawings and Etchings of Joseph
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A Memorial Sketch, and a Selection from the Letters

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Jack and Mrs. Brown, and other Stories.

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Epitaphs and Inscriptions from Burial-G-rounds and

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The History and Traditions of the Land of the Lindsays

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Memorials of Angus and the Mearns : an Account,

Historical, Antiquarian, and Traditionary, of the Castles and Towns visited by
Edward I. , and of the Barons, Clergy, and others who swore Fealty to England
in 1291-6. By the late Andrew Jervise, F.S.A. Scot. Rewritten and corrected
by the Rev. James Gammack, M.A. Illustrated with Etchings by W. Hole,
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Pilate's Question, "Whence art Thou?"

An Essay on the Personal Claims asserted by Jesus Christ, and how to account
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Sermons by the Rev. John Ker, D.D., Glasgow.

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Sermons: Second Series: by the Rev. John Ker, D.D.

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The English Lake District as interpreted in the Poems

of Wordsworth. By William Knight, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the
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Colloquia Peripatetica (Deep Sea Soundings) :

Being Notes of Conversations with the late John Duncan, LL.D., Professor of
Hebrew in the New College, Edinburgh. By William Knight, Professor of Moral
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Lindores Abbey, and the Burgh of Newburgh ;

Their History and Annals. By Alexander Laing, LL.D., F.S.A. Scot. Small
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Recollections of Curious Characters and Pleasant

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Essays and Reviews.

By the late Henry H. Lancaster, Advocate; with a Prefatory Notice by the
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An Echo of Passion.

By Geo. Parsons Lathrop. Is. ; and in cloth, 2s.

On the Philosophy of Ethics. An Analytical Essay.

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Notes on British Theories of Morals.

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Leaves from the Buik of the West Kirke.

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Bible Studies in Life and Truth.

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Sermons by the Rev. Adam Lind, M.A, Elgin.

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Only an Incident.

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John Calvin, a Fragment by the Late Thomas M'Crie,

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The Parish of Taxwood, and some of its Older Memories.

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Principles of the Algebra of Logic, with Examples.

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The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scot-
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Memoir of Sir James Dalrymple, First Viscount Stair.

A Study in the History of Scotland and Scotch Law during the Seventeenth
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Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier's Life.

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The Light of the World.

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The Book of Psalms in Metre.

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Omnipotence belongs only to the Beloved.

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Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature,

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In Partnership. Studies in Story-Telling.

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Antwerp Delivered in MDLXXVII. :

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LIST OF BOOKS

Studies in the Topography of Galloway, with a List of

nearly 4000 Names of Places, and Remarks on their Origin and Meaning. By Sir
Herbert Maxwell, Bart., M.P. 1 vol, demy 8vo. [In the Press.

The History of Old Dundee, narrated out of the Town

Council Register, with Additions from Contemporary Annals. By Alexander
Maxwell, F.S.A. Scot. 4to. Cloth, 21s. ; Roxburgh, 24s.

Researches and Excavations at Carnac (Morbihan),

The Bossenno, and Mont St. Michel. By James Miln. Royal 8vo, with Maps,
Plans, and numerous Illustrations in Wood-Engraving and Chromolithography.

Excavations at Carnac (Brittany), a Record of Archaeo-
logical Researches in the Alignments of Eermario. By James Miln. Royal 8vo,
with Maps, Plans, and numerous Illustrations in Wood-Engraving. 15s.

The Past in the Present— What is Civilisation?

Being the Rhind Lectures in Archseology, delivered in 1876 and 1878. By Arthur
Mitchell, M.D., LL.D., Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. In
1 vol. demy 8vo, with 148 Woodcuts, 15s.

" Whatever differences of opinion, however, may be held on minor points, there
can be no question that Dr. Mitchell's work is one of the ablest and most original
pieces of archaeological literature which has appeared of late years."— St. James's
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In War Time. A Novel. By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. Crown Svo, 6s.
Roland Blake. A Novel. By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. Crown 8vo, 6s.

Our Scotch Banks:

Their Position and their Policy. By Wm. Mitchell, S.S.C. Third Edition. 8vo, 5s.

On Horse-Breaking.

By Robert Moreton. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, Is.

Ecclesiological Notes on some of the Islands of Scot-
land, with other Papers relating to Ecclesiological Remains on the Scottish Main-
land and Islands. By Thomas S. Muir, Author of " Characteristics of Church
Architecture," etc. Demy Svo, with numerous Illustrations, 21s

The Birds of Berwickshire.

By Geo. Muirhead. 1 vol. demy 8vo, Illustrated. 10s. to Subscribers.

[In the Press.

Ancient Scottish Lake-Dwellings or Crannogs, with a

Supplementary Chapter on Remains of Lake-Dwellings in England. By Robert
Munro, M.D., F.S.A. Scot. 1 vol. demy Svo, profusely illustrated, 21s.

" A standard authority on the subject of which it treats."— Times.

" . . . Our readers may be assured that they will find very much to interest
and instruct them in the perusal of the work." — Athenceum.

"The Lanox of Auld:" An Epistolary Review of "The

Lennox, by William Fraser." By Mark Napier. With Woodcuts and Plates.
4to, 15s.

Tenants' Gain not Landlords' Loss, and some other

Economic Aspects of the Land Question. By Joseph Shield Nicholson, M.A.,
Professor of Political Economy in the University of Edinburgh. Crown Svo, 5s.

Camps in the Caribbees : Adventures of a Naturalist

in the Lesser Antilles. By Frederick Ober. Illustrations, demy Svo, 12s.

" Well-written and well-illustrated narrative of camping out among the Carib-
bees."— Westminster Review.

11 Varied were his experiences, hairbreadth his escapes, and wonderful his glean-
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PUBLISHED BY DAVID DOUGLAS.

Cookery for the Sick and a Guide for the Sick-Room.

By C. H. Ogg, an Edinburgh Nurse. Fcap. Is.

The Lord Advocates of Scotland from the close of the

Fifteenth Century to the passing of the Reform Bill. By G. W. T. Omond,
Advocate. 2 vols, demy 8vo, 28s.

Arniston Memoirs— From the 16th to the 19th Century.

Edited from Family Papers by Geo. W. T. Omond, Advocate. 1 vol. demy 8vo,
Illustrated. [In the Press.

An Irish Garland.

By Mrs. S. M. B. Piatt. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.

The Children Out of Doors. A Book of Verses

By Two in One House. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.

Records of the Coinage of Scotland, from the earliest

period to the Union. Collected by R. W. Cochran-Patrick, M.P. Only two
hundred and fifty copies printed. Now ready, in 2 vols. 4to, with 16 Full-page
Illustrations, Six Guineas.

" The future Historians of Scotland will be very fortunate if many parts of their
materials are so carefully worked up for them and set before them in so complete
and taking a form." — Athenceum.

" When we say that these two volumes contain more than 770 records, of which
more than 550 have never been printed before, and that they are illustrated by a
series of Plates, by the autotype process, of the coins themselves, the reader may
judge for himself of the learning, as well as the pains, bestowed on them both by
the Author and the Publisher." — Times.

11 The most handsome and complete work of the kind which has ever been pub-
lished in this country." — Numismatic Chronicle, Pt. IV., 1876.

Early Records relating to Mining in Scotland :

Collected by R. VV. Cochran-Patrick, M.P. Demy 4to, 31s. 6d.

" The documents . . . comprise a great deal that is very curious, and no less
that will be important to the historian in treating of the origin of one of the most
important branches of the national industry." — Daily News.

" Such a book . . . revealing as it does the first developments of an industry
which has become the mainspring of the national prosperity, ought to be specially
interesting to all patriotic Scotchmen." — Saturday Review.

The Medals of Scotland : a Descriptive Catalogue of

the Royal and other Medals relating to Scotland. By R. W. Cochran-Patrick,
M.P. Dedicated by special permission to Her Majesty the Queen. Demy 4to,
with plates in facsimile of all the principal pieces, £3, 3s.

Phoebe.

By the Author of "Rutledge." Reprinted from the Fifth Thousand of the
American Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.
" 'Phoebe' is a woman's novel." — Saturday Review.

Popular Genealogists ;

Or, The Art of Pedigree-making. Crown 8vo, 4s.

The Gamekeeper's Manual : being Epitome of the Game

Laws for the use of Gamekeepers and others interested in the Preservation of
Game. By Alexander Porter, Deputy Chief Constable of Roxburghshire.
Fcap. 8vo, Is.

Oils and Water Colours.

By William Renton. Fcap., 5s.

" The book is obviously for the Artist and the Poet, and for every one who shares
with them a true love and zeal for nature's beauties." — Scotsman.

Kuram, Kabul, and Kandahar : being a Brief Record of

the Impressions in Three Campaigns under General Roberts. By Lieutenant
Robertson, 8th, " The King's," Regiment. Crown Svo, with Maps, 6s.

16 LIST OF BOOKS

Scotland under her Early Kings.

A History of the Kingdom to the close of the 13th century. By E. William
Robertson. In 2 vols. 8vo, cloth, 36s.

Historical Essays,

In connection with the Land and the Church, etc. By E. William Robertson,
Author of " Scotland under her Early Kings." 8vo, 10s. 6d.

A Rectorial Address delivered before the Students of

Aberdeen University, in the Music Hall at Aberdeen, on Nov. 5, 1880. By The
Earl of Rosebery. 6d.

A Rectorial Address delivered before the Students of

the University of Edinburgh, Nov. 4, 1882. By The Earl of Rosebery. 6d.

Rosetty Ends, or the Chronicles of a Country Cobbler.

By Job Bradawl (A. Dewar Willock), Author of " She Noddit to me." Fcap.
8vo, illustrated.

Aberdour and Inchcolme. Being Historical Notices of

the Parish and Monastery, in Twelve Lectures. By the Rev. William Ross, LL.D..
Author of "Burgh Life in Dunfermline in the Olden Time." Crown 8vo, 6s.

" If any one would know what Aberdour has been, or, indeed, what to some
extent has been the history of many another parish in Scotland, he cannot do
better than read these Lectures. He will find the task a pleasant one. " — Saturday
Review.

" We know no book which within so small a compass contains so varied, so
accurate, and so vivid a description of the past life of the Scottish people,
whether ecclesiastical or social, as Dr. Ross's 1 Aberdour and Inchcolme.' " —
Scottish Review.

" It seems a pity that so good a thing should have been so long withheld from
a wider audience ; but better late than never." — Scotsman.

Notes and Sketches from the Wild Coasts of Nipon.

With Chapters on Cruising after Pirates in Chinese Waters. By Henry C. St.
John, Captain R.N. Small Demy 8vo, with Maps and Illustrations, 12s.

"One of the most charming books of travel that has been published for some
time." — Scotsman.

"There is a great deal more in the book than Natural History. . . . His
pictures of life and manners are quaint and effective, and the more so from the
writing being natural and free from effort." — Athenceum.

"He writes with a simplicity and directness, and not seldom with a degree of
graphic power, which, even apart from the freshness of the matter, renders his
book delightful reading. Nothing could be better of its kind than the description
of the Inland Sea." — Daily News.

Notes on the Natural History of the Province of Moray.

By the late Charles St. John, Author of "Wild Sports in the Highlands."
Second Edition. In 1 vol. royal 8vo, with 40 page Illustrations of Scenery and
Animal Life, engraved by A. Durand after sketches made by George Reid,
R.S.A., and J. Wycliffe Taylor ; also, 30 Pen-and-ink Drawings by the Author
in facsimile. 50s.

" This is a new edition of the work brought out by the friends of the late Mr. St.
John in 1863 ; but it is so handsomely and nobly jointed, and enriched with such
charming illustrations, that we may consider it a new book."— Si. James's Gazette.

"Charles St. John was not an artist, but he had the habit of roughly sketching
animals in positions which interested him, and the present reprint is adorned by
a great number of these, facsimiled from the author's original pen and ink. Some
of these, as for instance the studies of the golden eagle swooping on its prey, and
that of the otter swimming with a salmon in its mouth, are very interesting, and
full of that charm that comes from the exact transcription of unusual observa-
tion."— Pall Mall Gazette.

PUBLISHED BY DAVID DOUGLAS. 1 7

A Tour in Sutherlandshire, with Extracts from the

Field-Books of a Sportsman and Naturalist. By the late Charles St. John,
Author of " Wild Sports and Natural History in the Highlands." Second Edition,
witli an Appendix on the Fauna of Sutherland, by J. A. Harvie-Brown and
T. E. Buckley. Illustrated with the original Wood Engravings, and additional
Vignettes from the Author's sketch-books. In 2 vols, small demy 8vo, 21s.
" Every page is full of interest."— The Field.

" There is not a wild creature in the Highlands, from the great stag to the tiny
fire-crested wren, of which he has not something pleasant to say."— Pall Mall
Gazette.

Life of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell.

By Professor Schiern, Copenhagen. Translated from the Danish by the Rev.
David Berry, F.S.A. Scot. Demy 8vo, 16s.

Scotch Folk.

Illustrated. Fourth Edition enlarged. Ex. fcap. 8vo, Is.

" They are stories of the best type, quite equal in the main to the average of
Dean Ramsay's well-known collection." — Aberdeen Free Press.

Studies in Poetry and Philosophy.

By the late J. C. Shairp, LL.D., Principal of the United College of St. Salvator
and St. Leonard, St. Andrews. Fourth Edition, with Portraits of the Author and
Thomas Erskine, by William Hole, A.R.S.A. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d

"In the 'Moral Dynamic,' Mr. Shairp seeks for something which shall per-
suade us of the vital and close bearing on each other of moral thought and spiritual
energy. It is this conviction which has animated Mr. Shairp in every page of the
volume before us. It is because he appreciates so justly and forcibly the powers
of philosophic doctrine over all the field of human life, that he leans with such
strenuous trust upon those ideas which Wordsworth unsystematically, and Cole-
ridge more systematically, made popular and fertile among us." — Saturday
Review.

" The finest essay in the volume, partly because it is upon the greatest and most
definite subject, is the first, on Wordsworth. . . . We have said so much upon this
essay that we can only say of the other three that they are fully worthy to stand
beside it." — Spectator.

Culture and Religion.

By Principal Shairp. Seventh Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d.

"A wise book, and unlike a great many other wise books, has that carefully
shaded thought and expression which fits Professor Shairp to speak for Culture
no less than for Religion." — Spectator.

"Those who remember a former work of Principal Shairp's, ' Studies in Poetry
and Philosophy,' will feel secure that all which comes from his pen will bear the
marks of thought, at once careful, liberal, and accurate. Nor will they be dis-
appointed in the present work. . . . We can recommend this book to our readers."
— Athenceum.

"We cannot close without earnestly recommending the book to thoughtful
young men. It combines the loftiest intellectual power with a simple and child-
like faith in Christ, and exerts an influence which must be stimulating and
healthful." — Freeman.

Kilmahoe, a Highland Pastoral,

And other Poems. By Principal Shairp. Fcap. 8vo, 6s.

Shakespeare on Golf. With special Reference to St.

Andrews Links. 3d.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, The Inferno.

A Translation in Terza Rima, with Notes and Introductory Essay. By James
Romanes Sibbald. With an Engraving after Giotto's Portrait. Small Demy
Svo, 12s.

" Mr. Sibbald is certainly to be congratulated on having produced a translation
which would probably give an English reader a better conception of the nature of
the original poem, having regard both to its matter and its form in combination,
than any other English translation yet published." — Academy.

LIST OF BOOKS

The Use of what is called Evil.

A Discourse by Simplictus. Extracted from his Commentary on the Enchiridion
ofEpictetus. Crown 8vo, Is.

The Near and the Far View,

And other Sermons. By Rev. A. L. Simpson, D.D., Derby. Ex. fcap. 8vo, 5s.

"Very fresh and thoughtful are these sermons." — Literary World.

" Dr. Simpson's sermons may fairly claim distinctive power. He looks at things
with his own eyes, and often shows us what with ordinary vision we had failed to
perceive. . . . The sermons are distinctively good." — British Quarterly Review.

Archaeological Essays.

By the late Sir James Simpson, Bart.
2 vols. 4to, 21s.

1. Archaeology.

2. Inchcolm.

3. The Cat Stane.

4. Magical Charm-Stones.

5. Pyramid of Gizeh.

Edited by the late John Stuart, LL.D.

6. Leprosy and Leper Hospitals.

7. Greek Medical Vases.

8. Was the Roman Army provided

with Medical Officers ?

9. Roman Medicine Stamps, etc. etc.

The Art of Golf.

By Sir Walter Simpson, Bart., Captain of the Hon. Company of Edinburgh
Golfers. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. [In the Press.

The Four Ancient Books of Wales,

Containing the Cymric Poems attributed to the Bards of the sixth century. By
William F. Skene, D.C.L., Historiographer-Royal for Scotland. With Maps and
Facsimiles. 2 vols. 8vo, 36s.

Celtic Scotland : A History of Ancient Alban.

By William F. Skene, D.C.L., Historiographer-Royal for Scotland. In 3 vols.
Demy 8vo, 45s. Illustrated with Maps.

I.— History and Ethnology. II.— Church and Culture.
III. — Land and People.
" Forty years ago Mr. Skene published a small historical work on the Scottish
Highlands which has ever since been appealed to as an authority, but which has
long been out of print. The promise of this youthful effort is amply fulfilled in
the three weighty volumes of his maturer years. As a work of historical research
it ought in our opinion to take a very high rank."— Times.

The Gospel History for the Young :

Being lessons on the Life of Christ, Adapted for use in Families and Sunday
Schools. By William F. Skene, D.C.L., Historiographer-Royal for Scotland.
Small Crown 8vo, 3 vols., with Maps, 5s. each vol., or in cloth box, 15s.

11 In a spirit altogether unsectarian provides for the youug a simple, interesting,
and thoroughly charming history of our Lord." — Literary World.

" This c Gospel History for the Young ' is one of the most valuable books of
the kind." — The Churchman.

Scottish Woodwork of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth

Centuries. Measured, Drawn, and Lithographed by J. W. Small, Architect.
In one folio volume, with 130 Plates, Four Guineas.

Shelley : a Critical Biography.

By George Barnett Smith. Ex. fcap. 8vo, 6s.

The Sermon on the Mount.

By the Rev. Walter C. Smith, D.D. Crown Svo, 6s.

Life and Work at the G-reat Pyramid.

With a Discussion of the Facts ascertained. By C. Piazzi Smyth, F.R.SS.L.
and E., Astronomer-Royal for Scotland. 3 vols. Demy 8vo, 56s.

Madeira Meteorologic :

Being a Paper on the above subject read before the Royal Society, Edinburgh, on
the 1st of May 1882. By C. Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer-Royal for Scotland.
Small 4to, 6s.

PUBLISHED BY DAVID DOUGLAS.

Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains.

Diary and Narrative of Travel, Sport, and Adventure, during a Journey through
part of the Hudson's Bay Company's Territories in 1859 and 1860. By the Earl
of Southesk, K.T., F.R.G.S. 1 vol. demy 8vo, with Illustrations on Wood by
Whymper, 18s.

By the same Author.

Herminius :

A Romance. Fcap. 8vo, 6s.

Jonas Fisher:

A Poem in Brown and White. Cheap Edition. Is.

The Burial of Isis and other Poems.

Fcap. 8vo, 6s.

Darroll, and other Poems.

By Walter Cook Spens, Advocate. Crown 8vo, 5s.

Rudder Grange.

By Frank R. Stockton. Is. ; and cloth, 2s.

" ' Rudder Grange' is a book that few could produce, and that most would be
proud to sign." — Saturday Review.

" It may be safely recommended as a very amusing little book."— A thenceum.

"Altogether 'Rudder Grange' is as cheery, as humorous, and as wholesome
a little story as we have read for many a day." — St. James's Gazette.

"The minutest incidents are narrated with such genuine humour and gaiety,
that at the close of the volume the reader is sorry to take leave of the merry
innocent party."— Westminster Review.

The Lady or the Tiger ? and other Stories.

By Frank R. Stockton. Contents. The Lady or the Tiger? The Trans-
ferred Ghost. The Spectral Mortgage. That same old 'Coon. His Wife's
deceased Sister. Mr. Tolman. Plain Fishing. My Bull Calf. Every Man
his own Letter Writer. The Remarkable Wreck of the "Thomas Hyke."
Is. ; and cloth, 2s.

" Stands by itself both for originality of plot and freshness of humour."— Century
Magazine.

Christianity Confirmed by Jewish and Heathen Testi-
mony, and the Deductions from Physical Science, etc. By Thomas Stevenson,
F.R.S.E., F.G.S., Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Second
Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d.

What is Play ?

A Physiological Inquiry. Its bearing upon Education and Training. By John
Strachan, M.D. Fcap., Is.

Good Lives : Some Fruits of the Nineteenth Century.

By A. M. Symington, D.D. Small Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.

Sketch of Thermodynamics.

By P. G. Tait, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh.
Second Edition, revised and extended. Crown 8vo, 5s.

Talks with our Farm-Servants.

By An Old Farm-Servant. Crown 8vo ; paper 6d.5 cloth Is.

Walden; or, Life in the Woods.

By H. D. Thoreau. Crown 8vo, 6s.

Tommie Brown and the Queen of the Fairies; a new

Child's Book, in fcap. 8vo. With Illustrations, 4s. 6d.

Let pain be pleasure and pleasure be pain.
" There is no wonder that children liked the story. It is told neatly and well,
and is full of great cleverness, while it has that peculiar character the absence of
which from many like stories deprives them of any real interest for children."—
Scotsman.

LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY DAVID DOUGLAS.

Our Mission to the Court of Marocco in 1880, under

Sir John Drummond Hay, K.C.B., Minister Plenipotentiary at Tangier, and
Envoy Extraordinary to His Majesty the Sultan of Marocco. By Captain Philip
Durham Trotter, 93d Highlanders. Illustrated from Photographs by the Hon.
D. Lawless, Rifle Brigade. Square Demy 8vo, 24s.

The Upland Tarn : A Village Idyll.

Small Crown, 5s.

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

By Richard Grant White. Is. ; or in cloth, 2s.
"An impudent book." — Vanity Fair.
"This short, tiresome book."— Saturday Review.
"Brimful of genuine humour." — Montrose Standard.

"Mr. White is a capital caricaturist, but in portraying the ludicrous eccentri-
cities of the patrician Britisher he hardly succeeds so well as in delineating the
peculiar charms of the representative Yankee." — Whitehall Review.

Rosetty Ends, or the Chronicles of a Country Cobbler.

By Job Bradawl (A. Dewar Willock), Author of " She Noddit to me." Fcap.
8vo, Illustrated.

The Botany of Three Historical Records :

Pharaoh's Dream, the Sower, and the King's Measure. By A. Stephen Wilson.
Crown 8vo, with 5 plates, 3s. 6d.

"A Bushel of Corn."

By A. Stephen Wilson. An investigation by Experiments into all the more
important questions which range themselves round a Bushel of Wheat, a Bushel
of Barley, and a Bushel of Oats. Crown 8vo, with Illustrations, 9s.

" It is full of originality and force." — Nature.

"A monument of painstaking research." — Liverpool Mercury.

"Mr. Wilson's book is interesting not only for agriculturists and millers, but
for all who desire information on the subject of corn, in which every one is so
intimately concerned." — Morning Post.

Songs and Poems.

By A. Stephen Wilson. Crown 8vo, 6s.

Reminiscences of Old Edinburgh.

By Daniel Wilson, LL.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of History and English Literature
in University College, Toronto, Author of " Prehistoric Annals of Scotland," etc.
etc. 2 vols, post 8vo, 15s.

The India Civil Service as a Career for Scotsmen.

By J. Wilson, M.A. Is.

Christianity and Reason :

Their necessary connection. By R. S. Wyld, LL.D. Extra fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d.

Shakespeare's England.

By William Winter. Contents. The Voyage. The Beauty of England.
Great Historic Places. Rambles in London. A Visit to Windsor. The
Palace of Westminster. Warwick and Kenilworth. First View of Strat-
ford-on-avon. london nooks and corners. relics of lord byron. west-
MINSTER Abbey. The Home of Shakespeare. Up to London. Old Churches
of London. Literary Shrines of London. A Haunt of Edmund Kean.
Stoke-Pogis and Thomas Gray. At the Grave of Coleridge. On Barnet
Battlefield. A Glimpse of Canterbury. The Shrines of Warwickshire.
A Borrower of the Night. Is., paper, or 2s., cloth extra.

EDINBURGH : DAVID DOUGLAS, CASTLE STREET.

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